"Hissing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the approach from the gate was visible, he started, stopped and stared. He rubbed his eyes. No; he was not asleep and dreaming by the cottage fire; the wind was about him, and the firs were howling and hissing; there was the cloudy mountain, with the Glashburn, fifty times its usual size, darting like brown lightning from it; but where was the iron gate with its two stone pillars, crested with wolf's-heads? where was ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... coolies had gone, Captain Kneebone's heels were busy, staving open boxes right and left. A bottle rolled out, and smashed in a hissing froth ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... bowl of spiced wine, with roasted apples hissing on its surface, was borne into the hall by four men, followed by an empty bowl of the same dimensions, with all the materials of arrack punch, for the divine's especial brewage. He accinged himself to ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting, the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and the soft hits ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... movement would be possible. It was an eerie situation. The night was filled with multifarious noise—peculiar 'poops,' the distant crash of bombs, and all the mingled echoes of a battlefield. At one time German howitzers, firing at longest range, chimed a faint chorus high above our heads; anon a hissing swoop would plant a shell close to our whereabouts. Lights rose and sank, flickering. Red and green rockets, as if to ornament the tragedy of war, were dancing in the sky. Occasionally a gust of foul wind, striking the face, ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... Hunt himself. I do not observe Lamb's name appended to any of the articles in the first volume; but the second comprises the Essays on Hogarth and on Burial Societies, together with a paper on the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, under the signature of "Semel Damnatus." There is a good deal of humor in this paper (which has not been republished, I believe). It professes to come from one of a club of condemned ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... and cough, and perhaps slight hoarseness. They go to bed and fall asleep as usual, but the cough, which does not wake them, becomes suddenly noisy, ringing, croupy, and the breathing is speedily attended with a long-drawn sound, half-hissing, half-ringing, and the child soon wakes alarmed, and fighting for breath, the skin bathed in perspiration, the face flushed and anxious. The cough, the difficult breathing, and the struggle for air ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... comforted to find the waiter did not think he would be thrown into prisons and dungeons; so he dined, and dressed, and went to the theatre to console himself, where however he MADE HIMSELF HEARD so effectually—first applauding, then hissing, and even speaking his opinions to the people round him—that a set of young college students combined together to get rid of him, and, I am sorry to add, they made use of a little kicking as the surest plan; and so, before half the play was over, Mr. Franz found ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... a few straining strokes, the boat returned to a straight path before the roller and the next moment had rushed up on the sand, propelled by the last force of the breaker which went seething and hissing ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... a little later, he had a chance to use the periscope. For one thing the short winter day was fading and the light was already poor; for another any attempt to keep the periscope above the parapet for more than a few seconds brought a series of bullets hissing and zipping over, and periscope glasses in those days were too precious to risk for ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... very awkward parcels he strode off to his train. The platform was crowded, the train was in. Doors banged open and shut. There came such a loud hissing from the engine that people looked dazed as they scurried to and fro. William made straight for a first-class smoker, stowed away his suit-case and parcels, and taking a huge wad of papers out of his inner pocket, he flung down in the corner ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... once more been thrilled with anxiety and compassion for the poor, sorely afflicted bands who had followed his summons. During the night preceding, he had climbed one of the lower peaks of Baal-zephon and, amid the raging of the tempest and the roar of the hissing surges, sought the Lord his God, and felt his presence near him. He, too, had not wearied of pleading the need of his people and adjuring him to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... steaming and hissing, was stopped at a spot close to where Lee Bryant and his companions stood. The young man at the wheel, unlatching ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a frightful flash, and a hissing, and ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. Not such his evening, who with shining face Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed And bored with elbow-points ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... found the mixture entirely without colour and also without precipitate. I was enabled to conclude that the air in this bottle had likewise diminished, from the fact that air rushed into the bottle with a hissing sound after I had made a small hole ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... put upon it, the deep rumble in its throat swelling into loud crescendos. Of a sudden it bounded through the gateway and stood a moment, baring great fangs. The animal threatened with long hisses. Vergilius held its eye, his lance raised. The hissing ceased, the growl diminished, the stealthy paws moved slowly. Soon it rolled upon its side, purring, and seemed to caress the floor with head and paws—a trick to divert the gaze of Vergilius. The Satanic eyes were ever on its foe. As the beast lay there, twisting ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... and oil-can, gave one look up the road and went on with his labors. In a few moments the jangling beat of many bells throbbed on the frosty air. As if answering a challenge, the locomotive's escape valve shot up its hissing volume ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... any of the ministers, there was no demonstration of good will beyond the usual civility of lifting the hats as she passed. Indeed, Horace Wilson told me that, when he was crossing the park at the time of her driving through it, there was some—though not much—decided hissing. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... about the wall of rock that flanked the channel, a wind of noise struck us. It was like the hissing of innumerable snakes against a tonal background of muffled continuous thunder. A hundred yards before us was Eagle Rapids—a forbidding patch of writhing, whitening water, pricked with the upward thrust ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... sally did not take so well as the former efforts of the laird's wit. The lady drew up, and the Provost said, half aside, 'The sooth bourd is nae bourd; you will find the horse-shoe hissing ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged serpents. That's his hump. There, there, give it to him! whispered Starbuck. A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from astern, while forward ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... vain; In crowd at once, where none the pass defend, The harmless freedom and the private friend. The guardians yield, by force superior plied— To Interest, Prudence; and to Flattery, Pride. 340 Here Beauty falls betray'd, despised, distress'd, And hissing Infamy proclaims ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... o'clock to the meeting. A great number present, with a tribune full of Reformers, who showed their sense of propriety by hissing, hooting, and making all sorts of noises; and these unwashed artificers are from henceforth to select our legislators. There was some speaking, but not good. I said something, for ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... frantic yells cast from time to time into the flames furs and weapons, and that choicest of their treasures the costly wampum. Nay it was even whispered in the early time, that little children gaily adorned with wampum were led into the midst and thrust into the fiery embrace of the hissing god.[21] The practice of the Iroquois was less fearful, among whom a string of white wampum was hung around the neck of a white dog suspended to a pole and offered as a sacrifice to the mighty Haweuneyn. The ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... undergoing the destinies of war. The shells were falling along rue Mazel and on the citadel. A group of old houses by the Meuse had burnt to rafters of flickering flame, and as I passed them, one collapsed into the flooded river in a cloud of hissing steam. ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... mostly broken, but some large cakes making our strong-timber'd steamboat hum and quiver as she strikes them. In the clear moonlight they spread, strange, unearthly, silvery, faintly glistening, as far as I can see. Bumping, trembling, sometimes hissing like a thousand snakes, the tide-procession, as we wend with or through it, affording a grand undertone, in keeping with the scene. Overhead, the splendor indescribable; yet something haughty, almost supercilious, in the night. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... grown silent, and a clock near at hand had struck two when he found himself on the little bridge which crosses the canal. It was too dark to see the water below, but he heard the hard rain hissing on ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... waved like semaphores. The train ought to have been gliding away, but something delayed it, and it was held as if spellbound under the high, dim semicircle of black glass, amid the noises of steam, the hissing of electric globes, the horrible rattle of luggage trucks, the patter of feet, and the vast, murmuring gloom. Christine saw Edgar leaning from a window and gazing anxiously about. The little handkerchiefs were still courageously waving, ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Sepia's face. Seeing her now retiring with the bottle in her hand, he sprang after her, and, thanks to the fact that she had locked the door, was in time to snatch it from her. She turned like a wild beast, and a terrible oath came hissing as from a feline throat. When, however, she saw, not Mary, but the unknown figure of a powerful man, she turned again to the door and fled. Joseph shut and locked it, and went back to the closet. Mary drew near ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... talking with the cannoneer, when presently he desired us to look to ourselves, for he perceived by his perspective glass there was a piece charged in the castle against his work, and ready to be discharged. I ran for haste under an old ash-tree, and immediately the cannon-bullet came hissing quite over us. 'No danger now,' saith the gunner, 'but begone, for there are five more charging,' which was true; for two hours after those cannons were discharged, and unluckily killed our cannoneer and matross. I came the next morning ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... the pseudo-formulas of astronomers, gravitation as a fixed quantity is essential. Accept that gravitation is a variable force, and astronomers deflate, with a perceptible hissing sound, into the punctured condition of economists, biologists, meteorologists, and all the others of the humbler divinities, who can admittedly offer ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... of all the masters of men put together, and still goes on increasing. It is a notable fact that although churches and creeds are losing their hold upon the modern mind, the name of Jesus is held in greater regard than ever. We have heard of a meeting of workmen cheering Jesus and hissing the churches. In our day most people are agreed that in Jesus we have the most perfect life ever exhibited to humanity. It is not only Christians who take this view; everyone, or nearly everyone, does so. Some years ago a book was published which bore on the title-page the ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... arrival, we were called upon by the Arabs, a strange mixture. One, the Haji Mukhtar, was a Maghrebi from Fez: an expatriation of forty years had changed his hissing Arabic as little as his "rocky face." This worthy had a coffee-garden assigned to him, as commander of the Amir's body-guard: he introduced himself to us, however, as a merchant, which led us to ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... Russell. Mrs. Adams nodded several times, increasing the emphasis of her gesture, while Alice talked briskly; but the brooding waitress continued to brood. A faint snap of the fingers failed to disturb her; nor was a covert hissing whisper of avail, and Mrs. Adams was beginning to show signs of strain when ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... of one of his eyes. The next instant saw the Professor flung back at length against the bars of the cage; and in his face he felt Finn's breath, and heard and saw the flashing, clashing gleam of Finn's white fangs. Sam thrust the white-hot bar in, stabbing Finn's neck with its hissing end. The Professor seized the bar and beat Finn off with it; not for protection now, but in sheer, savage anger. Then he withdrew from the cage, and seizing a long pole beat Finn crushingly with that, through the bars, till his arms ached. Meantime, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... of our laughter alarmed Bruin, and revealed us to his sight, and, rising immediately on his hind-legs, he commenced moving towards the Norwegians, and hissing like a hot coal ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... the banks of the river, and were trekking up them towards the spot where it issued from the side of the mountain. Everywhere was spoor, but we saw no people, although here and there the vultures were hissing and quarrelling over the bones of a ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... man said never a word, but with indrawn breath hissing through his clenched teeth clutched her, and down they went together in the passage, the piper undermost. He had her by the throat, it is true, but she had her fingers in his eyes, and, kneeling on his chest, kept him down with a vigor of hostile ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... The wild Mammalia are tamed, and suspend their work of war and carnage; the cold-blooded Amphibia alone rejoice in the overwhelming deluge, and millions of snakes and frogs, which swarm in the flooded meadows, raise a chorus of hissing and croaking. Streams of muddy water flow through the narrow paths of the forests into the river, or pour into the cracks and chasms of the soil. The temperature continues to descend, and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... farther on, opened into a small patch of low grass. Just as I was getting through the brake to this spot I stopped short with a chill. In the ferns near me shrilled a hissing whistle, a weird, creepy whistle that made me cold—a fierce, menacing sound, all edge, and so thin that it slivered every nerve in me. And then, without a stir in the brake, up out of the low grass in front of me rose a ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... eldest daughter pretends to look on the shelf for something, the witch puts her dirty shoe on the range, catches hold of Monday (the youngest child) and runs off with him. The child who is the pot now makes a hissing noise and pretends to boil over. ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... dogs were hunting rabbits or woodchucks. On approaching, I saw no sign of such disturbances, and presently a Partridge came running at me through the trees, with ruff and tail expanded, bill wide open, and hissing like a Goose,—then turned suddenly, and with ruff and tail furled, but with no pretence of lameness, scudded off through the woods in a circle,—then at me again fiercely, approaching within two yards, and spreading ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... he had moved rather near, when suddenly a partially concealed mouth opened, showing the unmistakable tongue and fangs of a serpent. It emitted a hissing sound, and the small ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... royal grove. Slowly and cautiously did they proceed towards the bower, where, as Mezrimbi had truly said, Acota was waiting for his beloved princess. Fortunately, as they approached, a disturbed snake, hissing in his anger, caused an exclamation from the old brahmin, which aroused Acota from his delicious reverie. Through the foliage he perceived and recognised Mezrimbi, his father, and the mutes. Convinced that they meditated mischief towards himself, he secreted himself ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... moment obscured the moonrays from the top-light; the gas-jet choked with air, spluttered, burning with a tiny, blue, hissing flame; then the white path lay across the floor again, and the yellow flare of gas spurted up into its pitiful fulness—and in Smarlinghue's stead stood another man. Gone were the stooping shoulders, gone the hollow cheeks, the thin, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... a turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin was immediately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often mixed with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, that occurs so frequently in the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... attempt the conquest of Medusa, a terrible monster who had laid waste the country. She was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Minerva, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her beautiful ringlets into hissing serpents. She became a cruel monster of so frightful an aspect that no living thing could behold her without being turned into stone. All around the cavern where she dwelt might be seen the stony figures of men and animals which had chanced ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... not satisfy her, and the committee needed no urging to grant her another. At the second meeting, the hall was literally packed, and hundreds went away unable to obtain seats. When she arose to speak, there was some hissing from the doorways, but the most profound silence reigned through the crowd within. Angelina first stood in front of the Speaker's desk, then she was requested to occupy the Secretary's desk on one side, and soon after, that she might be seen as well as heard, she was invited to stand ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... had in abundance—enough to last them, at the present rate of firing, for nearly three years. Long we gazed, fascinated at the scene before us. A dead silence had reigned for some time, when we were awakened from our dreams by the whiz and hissing of a shell fired by the enemy. It fell close below the tower and burst without doing any harm; but some jets of smoke appeared on the bastions of the city, and shells and round-shot fired at the ridge along the crest of which a small ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... lead. They are collected in grosses, or great grosses, into small square iron boxes, and placed by men who are exclusively employed in this department in a furnace, where they remain until box and pens are of a white heat. They are then taken out and immediately thrown hissing into oil, which cures them of their softness, by making them as brittle as wafers. On being taken out they are put in a sieve to drain, and then into a cylinder full of holes, invented by Mr. Gillott, which, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... is not as idle ore, But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipped in baths of hissing tears, And battered with the shocks of ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... shudder and tremble under his feet. He looked out of the side porthole on the starboard bow, and saw his own fleet dropping away into the distance and the darkness of the November night. The water ahead curled up into two huge swathes, which broke into foam and spray, which lashed hissing along ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... Mr. Count, the mate, fairly chuckled again at the thought of how the little Britisher had wiped the eyes of these veteran fishermen. The captive was cut open, and two recent flying-fish found in his maw, which were utilized for new bait, with the result that there was a cheerful noise of hissing and spluttering in the galley soon after, and a mess ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... he read, or seemed to read, these words, with scarce an accent to mar their impetuous flow, Dr. Englehart drew in his breath with the hissing sound of passion, and folded his arms tightly across his padded breast, as if they enfolded the bride he was suing ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... grey dawn was stealing slowly up into the riven sky, lighting up the clouds which were flying eastward on the shoulder of a boisterous wind. The heavy grey sea, heaving, surging, and hissing, threw itself upwards into broken spray, which flew to leeward at a sharp angle, blown from the summit of the wave like froth from an over-filled tankard. After a night of squally restlessness, accompanied by a driving ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... and rumbled onward. The hissing of steam was audible. The vehicle swung around a pinnacle of stone, ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... crepuscular light, bulks of things—big, black, formless—were dimly seen; but nearer the hoarding than the middle of the waste open ground was a spectacle that puzzled the looker-on. Great fans were winnowing the air, a wheel was running at prodigious speed, flaming vapors fled hissing forth, and the figure of a man, attached in some way to the revolving fans, was now lifted several feet from the ground, now dashed to earth again, now caught in and now torn from the teeth ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... exhibited the simplicity of character so remarkable in the domestic species; but that where they had been often fired at they were exceedingly wild, alarmed their companions on the approach of danger by a hissing noise, and scaled the rocks with a speed and agility that baffled pursuit." The mountain men of early days tell precisely the same thing of the sheep. Fifty or sixty years ago they were regarded as the gentlest and most unsuspicious animal of all the prairie, excepting, of course, the buffalo. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... are!" came in a hissing whisper from the darkness near by, and then the invisible whisperer moved away, making a weird sound as he slid his hand along a wall, till it died away in ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound;(50) Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound. Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, And gloomy darkness roll'd about his head. The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow, And hissing fly the feather'd fates below. On mules and dogs the infection first began;(51) And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man. For nine long nights, through all the dusky air, The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare. But ere the tenth revolving day was run, Inspired ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... when by the chimney-corner in a comfortable easy-chair, veiled in wreaths of tobacco-smoke, you yield to the luxury of repose, and listen idly to the duet between the chirping of a cricket on the hearth and the hissing of ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... "to tell me whether the father of your child is white or black." I hesitated. "Answer me this instant!" he exclaimed. I did answer. He sprang upon me like a wolf, and grabbed my arm as if he would have broken it. "Do you love him?" said he, in a hissing tone. ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... directly overhead with a mighty sound that shook the earth and sent Scamp bounding out of his path in terror. Then down came the rain. It was as though a million buckets had been emptied upon him; it fell in livid, hissing sheets and walls, taking strange shapes, like pillars and columns that came from a dim nowhere and rushed past him into the gray void behind. He was drenched ere he could have turned in his saddle; his eyes were filled with rain, it ran dripping from his soaking hat brim and coursed down his ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... rolled down a few steps, and, bursting, tore up the whole stair, leaving only a deep gulf between us and the portal. The women fled back through the apartment. I now regarded all as lost; and expecting the roof to come down every moment on my head, and hearing nothing round me but the bursting and hissing of those horrible instruments of havoc, I hurried through the chambers, in the hope of finding some casement from which I might reach the ground. They were all lofty and difficult of access, but I at length ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... mouth the coins I had stolen from my former blind master. But one night, when I was fast asleep, it was decreed by an evil destiny that the key should be placed in such a position in my mouth that my breath caused a loud whistling noise. My master concluded that this must be the hissing of the snake; he arose and stole with a club in his hand towards the place whence the sound proceeded; then, lifting the club, he discharged with all his force a blow on my unfortunate head. When he had fetched ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... branch fell hissing into a little pool at the bottom of the gully. It passed so near them that it singed a lock of ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... and the two dear, anxious faces looking up at him with glistening eyes. He stood a full minute without speaking—and you know how long a minute's silence seems on the stage; then he took three steps forward, sank upon a low chair beside the table, and exclaimed in a hissing voice: ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on. The flame rose and fell, reflecting itself in her agonised eyes; the hissing sound of her terrible maledictions, and no words of mine can convey how terrible they were, ran round the walls and died away in little echoes, and the fierce light and deep gloom alternated themselves on the white and dreadful form stretched ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... the midday halt, a hissing passed through the air, which made Mrs. Weldon very uneasy, ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... was no light jest of the weather bureau. His first January no'theaster taught him that. Lying in his bed at one o'clock in the morning, feeling that bed tremble beneath him as the wind gripped the sturdy gables of the old house, while the snow beat in hissing tumult against the panes, and the great breakers raved and roared at the foot of the bluff—this was an experience for Galusha. The gray dawn of the morning brought another, for, although it was no longer snowing, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to know anything of the work. It is moreover characteristic of the people of Copenhagen, that when a new piece is announced, they do not say, "I am glad of it," but, "It will probably be good for nothing; it will be hissed off the stage." That hissing-off plays a great part, and is an amusement which fills the house; but it is not the bad actor who is hissed, no, the author and the composer only are the criminals; for them the scaffold is erected. Five minutes ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... who had three daughters and one son-in-law. One day, as the mother was cooking some meat, she threw a clot of blood into the pot containing the meat. The pot began to boil, and then there issued from it a peculiar hissing noise. The old woman looked into the pot, and was surprised to see that the blood-clot had become transformed into a little boy. Quickly he grew, and, in a few moments, he sprang from the pot, a full-grown young man." Kutoyis, as the youth was named, became an ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... visible on a hill by the springs of Amymone, where its lair was found. Here Iolaus left the horses stand. Hercules leaped from the chariot and sought with burning arrows to drive the many-headed serpent from its hiding place. It came forth hissing, its nine heads raised and swaying like the branches of a ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... to the esplanade of the fort, and the Swiss met her, carrying a torch which ineffectual rain-drops irritated to constant hissing. He stood, tall and careworn, holding it up that his lady might see her soldiers. Everything in the fort was ready for the siege. The sentinels were about to be doubled, and sheltered ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... words drifted gently away, and in their wake followed an awkward silence. The logs were hissing in the fire. I could hear the clock in the hall outside, and the beating of the vines against the window panes. It was no sound, certainly, that made me whirl around to look behind me,—some instinct—that was all. There was Brutus, not two feet from my back, with my father's cloak over ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... three blue furrows on Gregory's shoulders. Ivan took another spring, and with the same skill as before he again enveloped the culprit's body with the hissing thong, ever taking care that the tip of it should not touch him. Gregory uttered another shriek, and Ivan counted "Two." The blood now began to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... fiercely and restlessly anxious, at moments grew dull as if with exhaustion. On the day before, while circling at her viewless height above a lake far inland, she had marked a huge lake-trout, basking near the surface of the water. Dropping upon it with half-closed, hissing wings, she had fixed her talons in its back. But the fish had proved too powerful for her. Again and again it had dragged her under water, and she had been almost drowned before she could unloose the terrible grip of her claws. ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... broke great seas, the waves hissing and foaming as though angry at being cheated of their prey. The storm-swept waters seemed to seize on the rope, as though to pull it beneath the billows. The anchor that held the rope which passed over the "shears" seemed to be pulling ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... betrays the "Cockney" as a faulty knowledge of sporting terms. The young lady at the left has just returned from the hunting field hand-in-hand with the dashing "lead," who happens to be an eligible billionaire. Her hostess, the mother of the sub-deb at the right, has greeted her by hissing, "S—o—o! I see you've had a good day's hunting!" The use of this unsportsmanlike expression—in stead of the correct "Hope you had a good run," or "Where did you find?"—at once discloses the hostess's mean origin and the young lady ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... stirre out of the chamber; and the host of the house ran out of doores, thinking the house would fall. The students lay neere unto the hall wherein Doctor Faustus lay, and they heard a mighty noyse and hissing, as if the hall had beene full of snakes and adders. With that, the hall-doore flew open, wherein Doctor Faustus was, that he began to cry for helpe, saying, Murther, murther! but it came forth with halfe a voyce, hollowly: shortly after, they ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... least dislike of the business. In the evening as I was going on board the Vice-Admiral, the General began to fire his guns, which he did all that he had in the ship, and so did all the rest of the Commanders, which was very gallant, and to hear the bullets go hissing over our heads as we were in the boat. This done and finished my Proclamation, I returned to the Nazeby, where my Lord was much pleased to hear how all the fleet took it in a transport of joy, showed me a private letter of the King's to him, and another from the Duke ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the instant that it breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... down in utter prostration, and his friends heard no other sound from him than the hissing of his breath between ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... as if about to kiss the very stars, and suddenly expired in the illimitable space above them. Immense sparks, shot out from these bonfires as from the craters of volcanoes, went sailing into the void around them and fell hissing into the water of the brooks or ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... more pretentious affair, the refreshments are served in the dining-room instead of in the drawing-room or outdoors as is sometimes done at simpler teas. The hissing urn always holds the place of honor (except on very warm days when iced tea or iced coffee may be served). Trays of thinly sliced bread are on the table, and dainty sandwiches in large variety. ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... strength of desperation, by that means seized hold upon the lowest rung. With my friend's arm round me I realized that exhaustion was even nearer than I had supposed. My last distinct memory is of the bursting of the floor above and the big burning joist hissing into the pool beneath us. Its fiery passage, striated with light, disclosed two sword blades, riveted, edges up along the top of the beam which I had ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... was due at the tank at 11.15 P. M. At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that they felt the same way the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... aching pain in her body lulling the aching pain of her mind. Gradually the white disc of the moon expanded before her and blotted out all active consciousness. Slowly the fierce serpents withdrew their hissing heads again. Slowly the ideal she had fought for lifted itself again within her. She began to feel more like her old self, only strangely exhausted and sorrowful. She was old, so old; weary, so weary. Hours went by. She passed ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... whenever their heads became visible. Clemenceau, the embodiment of the dauntless spirit of France, stood forth the very soul of patriotic ardor and indomitable courage. But the serpents were there, crawling hidden in the grass, ever hissing, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... opened fire—not upon the foe, among whose close masses they would have wrought execution as terrible as it would have been unnecessary—but away over their heads. The Masai stayed for only one volley. When the guns thundered, the rockets, hissing and crackling, swept over their heads, and, above all, the strange creatures with four feet and two heads rushed upon them, they turned in an instant and fled away howling. Our artillery sent another volley after them, to increase their panic, if possible; while ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... down. These locks looked like horns, and added to the combative expression of his countenance. He was fiery in his nature, excessively spirited, and ejaculated, rather than spoke to an audience; his speeches consisting of a series of short, hissing, spluttering sentences, by no means devoid of talent of a certain kind. Add to all this, that the gentleman was an Irish Attorney, and an Orangeman, and the reader may easily suppose that ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... lost her aunt, and is all alone; she is exposed to the power of, I know not what enemy. Can it be Mercanson? He may have spoken of my conversation with him, and seeing that I was jealous of Dalens, may have guessed the rest. Assuredly, he is the snake who has been hissing about my well-beloved flower. I must punish him, and I must repair the wrong I have done Brigitte. Fool that I am! I think of leaving her when I ought to consecrate my life to her, to the expiation of my sins, to rendering her ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... seemed to explode directly ahead. A blinding flare swept the ground, a hissing crackle was drowned in an overwhelming roar of thunder. Bob dodged, and his horse whirled. When he had mastered both his animal and himself he spurred back. California John had reined in his mount. Not twenty feet ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Dodge, winding a needleful of No. 20 thread off the spool, with the hissing sound familiar to the ears of the seamstress, and breaking it off with a snap, "I think it's the very best thing that could have been done. The minute I saw that girl's face last sewing-circle, I knew she'd make out to save that boy. Mark my words, he'll outlive us all yet! I ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... bark, and instantly the seeming log shoved out four feet, and exhibited to our astonished eyes a hideous crocodile fully twelve feet long, and evidently of prodigious strength. Still more terrific did he look when he began to turn round in a circle, hissing and clanking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye intently fixed on us. I felt a strong inclination to run away, for it seemed to me that he might make a rush and snap one of us up in a moment; but as Nowell and the natives stood ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... is to roast a wild apple in the fire in order to throw it hissing hot into a bowl of nutbrown ale, into which had been put a toast with some spice and sugar. Puck describes ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were first employed on their shores, they were filled with astonishment. When the heated iron was hammered on the anvil, and the sparks flew among them, they fancied it was spitting at them, and were frightened, as they also were with the hissing occasioned by immersing it in water; yet they were delighted to see the facility with which a bar of iron was thus converted into hatchets, adzes, fish-spears, fish-hooks, and other things. Pomare, entering one ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... to confound a plain man with dark words, till his hissing flesh lets him know their meaning. Now listen to what I have seen. When a soldier bleeds from a wound in battle, these leeches say, 'Fever. Blood him!' and so they burn the wick at t'other end too. They bleed the bled. Now at fever's heels comes ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... from two to six feet, beautifully variegated with different colours, but the most remarkable circumstance attending him is a natural noise that he produces with every motion of his tail, and which, too, occasions his name. I soon destroyed my hissing foe, and, taking courage for the first time to kindle a fire, I roasted him upon the embers, and made the most delicious meal I ever remember ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... all day is about to leave us, a lonely watcher was standing by the angry swelling river in the most desolate part of the pass, at a place where a vast confusion of formless rocks crosses the stream, torturing it into a hundred boiling pools and hissing cascades. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... fire. The lurid glare from the white fires that curled and writhed under the crown-sheet flung wide upon flying right-of-way and the woods on either side, and played with the swirling ribbon of steam that was hissing back from the dome. Bathed in the blinding light, the fireman stood for a space, swinging his scoop with pendulum precision from fire-box to coal-tank and back again; then the ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... "You long for me to be gone," the audience applauded vociferously. To protect Sophie, Marie Antoinette sat in a box on several nights and stemmed the storm of disapproval, but in the end even the presence of the queen herself was insufficient to quell the hissing. One sad story completes the picture. In 1785, when her financial troubles were beginning, her two sons, who bore her no love, called for money. She had none to give them. "There are two horses left in the stable," she said. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... passed during the forenoon, over three or four swampy places, covered with reeds, rushes, and rank grass, which were inhabited by myriads of frogs of prodigious size. On crossing the streams, they were invariably saluted by a loud and unaccountable hissing, as if from a multitude of serpents. They could not account for this extraordinary noise in any other way, than by supposing it to have proceeded from some species of insects, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the country that enables him to be so comfortable. How can the owner of a dainty chalet, with smoked-oak furniture, imitation Venetian tapestry curtains, hot and cold water laid on, a bed of geraniums and hollyhocks, a baby crawling down the veranda, and a self-acting twirly-whirly hose gently hissing over the grass in the balmy dusk of an August evening—how can such a man despair of the Republic, or descend into the streets on voting days and mix ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... aside, Mary descended to the kitchen, where she found the table arranged with more than usual care. An old red waiter, which was only used on special occasions, was placed near Miss Grundy, and on it stood the phenomenon of a hissing coffee-pot: and what was stranger, still, in the place of the tin basin from which Mary had recently been accustomed to eat her bread and milk, there was now a cup and saucer, which surely must have been intended for her. Her wonder was at its height when Miss ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... culinary art in previous campaigns, and we had all the pots, kettles, and pans provided for such occasions. A fire was made in the woods, near the centre of the island, where it was hoped the smoke would not betray us, and potatoes and ham were soon hissing in the pans. About twenty of the students were employed in this work,—peeling potatoes, and preparing the pork and bacon,—while only four of the most experienced were intrusted with the care of the ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... bosom old, Again she felt that bosom cold, And drew in her breath with a hissing sound: Whereat the Knight turned wildly round, 460 And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid With eyes ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... grey. His physical attraction, in short, remained unimpaired. And of this Damaris was actually, if unconsciously, sensible as he closed the door and, passing between the stumpy pillars, walked up the long narrow room and stood, his hands behind him, his back to the pleasantly hissing ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... ten paces before he heard the puffing of the express. Then he ran for the curve, but it was too late. In a horrible minute the engine of the express had telescoped the standing train, and the shrieks of the mangled passengers mingled with the hissing escape of steam. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... upright, her little dumpling hands folded one within the other, the long transparent nails making deep indentures in the soft flesh, and her gray eyes emitting green gleams of scorn. The answer her husband sought came at length, and was characteristic of the woman. Hissing out the words from between her teeth, she replied, "When I take 'Lena Rivers into my family for my husband and son to make love to, alternately, I shall be ready for the lunatic asylum ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... chance than in consequence of any intelligent treatment, and this confirms their false belief that they are healed by means of these ceremonies, not considering that, for two who are thus cured, ten others die on account of the noise, great hubbub and hissing, which are rather calculated to kill than cure a sick person. But that they expect to recover their health by this noise, and we on the contrary by silence and rest, shows how the devil does everything ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... been open with him from the first? His round, innocent stare of amazement cut her to the quick. But he was not looking at her. His stare was directed to Heemskirk, who, with his back to him and with his hands still up to his face, was hissing curses through his teeth, and (she saw him in profile) glaring at her balefully with one black, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... soul. He feels as if he lived at the Land's-End, or had emigrated to the back woods of America. All the world goes at a gallop, and he creeps. Finally, he is removed to Hanwell, and endeavours to persuade Dr Conolly that he is one of Stephenson's engines, and goes hissing and spurting in fierce imitation of Rapid or Infernal. And all this is the natural consequence of having settled in an ancient city inaccessible to rails. A list could easily be made out that would astonish any one who had not reflected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... annoy us. Anyway, we expected to reach camp just after noon, so a little delay about dinner didn't seem so bad. We had entered the desert by noon; the warm, red sands fell away from the wheels with soft, hissing sounds. Occasionally a little horned toad sped panting along before us, suddenly darting aside to watch with bright, cunning eyes as we passed. Some one had placed a buffalo's skull beside a big bunch of sage and on the sage a splendid pair of elk's antlers. We saw many ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... hissing voice that came from the inside of the oak-and-silver cellaret. And it sang a song that the man who sat ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... me mad If hissing steam was all I heard; But there's a boy who calls me dad Who daily keeps my courage spurred; And there's a little girl who waits Each night for all that I may bring, And I'm the guardian of their fates, Which makes this job ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... and round and dim-low globes of flame. And, scarce-perceived, the clouds' tall banners streamed. Out of the petty wars, the daily shame, Beauty strove suddenly, and rose, and flowered.... I gripped my coat and plunged where awnings lowered. Made one with hissing blackness, caught, embraced, By splendor and by striving and swift haste — Spring coming in with thunderings and strife — I stamped the ground in ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... an uproar. Members leaped from their seats and jammed the aisles, shouting, cheering, hissing, catcalling. The clerk was powerless ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... with a noise like that of fifty pieces of artillery, and blazing fragments of the doomed vessel were seen careering through the air in every direction. It lasted but an instant; the red glow that had lit up the sea for miles around vanished; the burning fragments fell hissing into the water; and, with the exception of a vibration in the air, all was calm as before. The felucca had disappeared; Groslow and his men ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the mass of clouds which had been collecting to the eastward, and gradually approaching, now came driving up bodily across the sky at a rapid rate—the dark waters below it, hitherto so smooth and calm, presented a sheet of snow-white foam, hissing and bubbling as if it were turned up and impelled onward by some gigantic besom. Ada, as she gazed with feelings of mingled terror and admiration, saw it in one long line near the brig—it reached her side—the white foam flew ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... All about her she heard the busy noises of the country morning; soft voices, men's calls, the stamping of farm horses, the clatter of the household ware, the splash of cleansing water poured, the hissing kettle; but she saw no one. It seemed to her that eyes were upon her and that pauses in the cheery bustle followed her as she walked, but whenever she stopped and tried to meet these eyes there was no one. ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... young gentleman," said the latter, coming close up to Reginald's side and hissing the words very disagreeably in his ear, "when I ask a question in this shop I expect to get an answer; mind that. And what's more, I'll have one, or you leave this place in five minutes. Come, now, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... captain poured out the liquor, a fall of several tons of water on the deck shook the entire ship, and one of the passengers in the hurricane-house, opening a door to ascertain the cause, the sound of the hissing waters and of the roaring winds came fresher and more distinct into the cabin. Mr. Truck cast an eye at the tell-tale over his head to ascertain the course of the ship, and paused just an instant, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the five ends of quick match which were his especial care. It was swiftly done, the lighting of the whole occupying less than half a minute; yet before the last five were ignited the still air was heavily charged with the fumes of gunpowder and there was a sound of hissing and sizzling suggestive of a whole army of ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... din Sweeps down its fathomless whirlpools through the gloom, When God with tumult of a mighty storm Hath palled the sky in cloud from verge to verge, When thunders crash all round, when thick and fast Gleam lightnings from the huddling clouds, when fields Are flooded as the hissing rain descends, And all the air is filled with awful roar Of torrents pouring down the hill-ravines; So Memnon toward the shores of Hellespont Before him hurled the Argives, following hard Behind them, slaughtering ever. Many a man Fell in the dust, and left his life in blood 'Neath Aethiop ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... halfway across and congratulating himself upon the ease of the achievement of this portion of his task when there arose from the depths directly in his path a hideous reptile, which, with wide-distended jaws, bore down upon him, hissing shrilly. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his unwelcome friend in this highly unprincipled manner, and strolled on to the pier full of expectation. Steamers ply pretty frequently on this particular lake, so he had not to wait very long. The little Cygnet soon came hissing up, and the moment the gangway was placed Don stepped on board, with tail ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... a kind of a lamp out on the floor beyond, and it burned with a sputtering and a hissing and a roaring, and it threw a big bluish kind of a flame straight out, like water out ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... a hissing sound, and a thud followed in lightning-like succession. Topanashka bends over, and at the same time tumbles forward on his face. There he lies, the left cheek and shoulder on the ground. The left arm, with which he has sought to support the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... thought, at first, that our messenger must have been drowned even in crossing the inner bar, for we well-nigh lost sight of him in the hissing yeast of waves in which he and his catamaran appeared only at intervals, tossing about like a cork. But by far the most difficult part of his task remained after he had reached the comparatively smooth space ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... of thunder, the hissing of the descending rain, the wind which blew in angry gusts, prevented all conversation until nearly an hour had elapsed, when the strife began to diminish. It was a sad and mournful sight to gaze upon the remains of departed ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... waist, for the north wind's grip And keener sting of the constable's whip, The blood that followed each hissing blow Froze as it ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... success; and of two discharged by him, the first spear is fastened in the earth, the second in the middle of his back. There is no delay; while he rages, while he is wheeling his body round, and pouring forth foam, hissing with the fresh blood, the giver of the wound comes up, and provokes his adversary to fury, and buries his shining hunting spear in his opposite shoulder. His companions attest their delight in an encouraging shout, and in their right hands endeavour to grasp the conquering right ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... wisp of straw and began rubbing down the old mare, and hissing over his work as if he wished to consider the conversation as ended. And Sylvia, who had strung herself up in a momentary fervour of gratitude to make the generous offer, was not sorry to have it refused, and went back planning what kindness she could ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Imperial!—Get out of my sunshine, Moses, you d—d little Israelite!—Consols! Consols! &c.' ... The noise of the screech-owl, the howling of the wolf, the barking of the mastiff, the grunting of the hog, the braying of the ass, the nocturnal wooing of the cat, the hissing of the snake, the croaking of toads, frogs, and grasshoppers—all these in unison could not be more hideous than the noise which these beings make in the Stock Exchange. And as several of them get into ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... crew, Contending warm with amicable skill; While they of Durius raced along the beach And scattered mud and jeers on all behind. The strength of Baetis too removed the helm And stripped the corslet off, and staunched the foot Against the mossy maple, while they tore Their quivering lances from the hissing wound. Others push forth the prows of their compeers, And the wave, parted by the pouncing beak, Swells up the sides, and closes far astern: The silent oars now dip their level wings, And weary with strong ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... not ready to start yet; he was enamoured of the unaccustomed comforts of a dry sleeping-place and a fire blown about by no wind and into which fell no hissing raindrops. Not for two days more would he consent to set out on the return journey, and if he could have persuaded me our stay at Riolama ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... mount by due degrees Into brown uplands, stretching high away To where, by silent tarns, the wild deer stray. Below, with gentle tide, the Atlantic Sea Laves the curved beach, and fills the cheerful quay, Where frequent glides the sail, and dips the oar, And smoking steamer halts with hissing roar." ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... upset, and what followed I don't know, as I was unfamiliar with the surroundings — but there was a good deal of it. I heard a click — had no idea what it was — and then the same movement back again to the lamp. Of course, he now fell over the stool he had upset before. Meanwhile there was a hissing sound, and a stifling smell of paraffin. I was thinking of making my escape through the door, when suddenly, just as I suppose it happened on the first day of Creation, in an instant there was light. But it was a light that defies description; ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... frequented that spot. Seated about a hundred yards from the foot of the rock, I eagerly awaited its appearance as it came to visit its nest with food for its young. I was warned of its approach by the loud hissing of the eaglets, which crawled to the extremity of the cavity to seize the prey—a fine fish. Presently the female, always the larger among rapacious birds, arrived, bearing also a fish. With more ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... and frequently two or three being joined together, such words we found difficult to pronounce. I observed that they could pronounce most of our words with great ease. They express their admiration by hissing like ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... continued O'Hearn, "was a shot fired from a window or door in the second story of the storehouse just back of the dock where the Spanish gunboats were lying. A shell then went hissing over our heads. Then the firing began from the gunboat at the wharf, and from the shore. The effect of shell and heavy shot the first time a man is under fire is ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... quickly as the man who had first come down made a hissing with his teeth. Graham saw the latter start back, gesticulate to them to conceal themselves, and move as if to ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... night of which the snake had told her, the princess got four large bowls of milk and sugar, and put one in each corner of the room, and stood in the doorway waiting. At midnight there was a great hissing and rustling from the direction of the river, and presently the ground appeared to be alive with horrible writhing forms of snakes, whose eyes glittered and forked tongues quivered as they moved on in the direction of the princess's house. Foremost among them was a huge, repulsive scaly ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... through the hall, wherein the barons were seated according to their degrees. She had, they say, four reasons for remembering the impudent, huge, squinting, yellow-haired young fellow whom she had encountered at the pool of Haranton. She blushed, and spoke with her father in the whistling and hissing language which the Apsarasas use among themselves: and her ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... honest toilers? Where The gravid mistress of their care? A busy scene, indeed, he sees, But not a sign or sound of bees. Worms of the riper grave unhid By any kindly coffin lid, Obscene and shameless to the light, Seethe in insatiate appetite, Through putrid offal, while above The hissing blow-fly seeks his love, Whose offspring, supping where they supt, Consume corruption ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... They lean heavily on sticks, their bodies are twisted and maimed, but their faces are shining with pride and joy. The French General draws his sword and addresses them. One catches words like 'honneur' and 'patrie.' They lean forward on their crutches, hanging on every syllable which comes hissing and rasping from under that heavy white moustache. Then the medals are pinned on. One poor lad is terribly wounded and needs two sticks. A little girl runs out with some flowers. He leans forward and tries to kiss her, but the crutches slip ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... command for a clear track as far as the wires would work, and within fifteen minutes the great engine with its single coach dashed across the bridge and plunged down the grade toward Sing Sing, roaring, hissing, screaming its warnings above the splash and howl of ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... bar was lifted from the anvil and plunged, hissing, into the bucket beside the forge; above the bucket a cloud of steam rose and showed clearly against the brilliant square of the door, and the peculiar scent which came from the iron went sharply to the nostrils of Jasper. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... boys. There was the hollow sound of a pail banged against something hard, and mingled with cries, shouts, laughter, and ejaculations of pain I felt myself fall upon the path, to be kicked and trampled on by someone contending, for there were slaps, and thuds, and blows, the panting and hissing of breath; and then the clanging of bells near and bells far, buzzing in ears, the rush and scuffling of feet, with shouts of derision, defiance, and laughter, and then, last of all, a curious cloud of mist seemed to close me in like the fog ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... delicately white napery and curtains. The saloon on the ground-floor opened sweetly into a little garden, with its fountain, its bit of rock-work, and its gods and nymphs of stone. The apartment had a peculiarly comfortable air at breakfast-time. The hissing urn, flanked by the tea-caddy; the rich brown coffee, the delicious butter, and the not less delicious bread, the produce of the plains around, not unnaturally white, as with us, but golden, like the wheat when it waves in the autumnal sun; and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... his awful hand, Wept o'er poor Niniveh, and her dull band, 'Till Fools like Weeds rose up, and choak'd the Land. Long, long he slumber'd e'er th' avenging hour; For dubious Mercy half o'er-rul'd his pow'r: 'Till the wing'd bolt, red-hissing from above Pierc'd Millions thro'——For such the Wrath of Jove. Hell, Chaos, Darkness, tremble at the sound, And prostrate Fools bestrow the vast Profound: No Charon wafts 'em from the farther Shore, Silent they sleep, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... Long before they gained the ridge the storm was upon them—first a few heavy drops, then a downpour which made the earth smoke again. In two minutes the scouts were wet to the skin, and the storm lasted twenty. Then it raced past them, hissing and roaring, and left them tramping down the farther side of the ridge, their boots full of water, and not a dry thread about them save for the blankets stowed in the ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... kitchen frying doughnuts for breakfast. She was a comfortable figure as she stood over the brimming "spider" with her three-pronged fork poised in the air. She turned the yellow rings in the hissing fat until they were nut-brown, then dropped them for a moment into a bowl of powdered sugar, from which they issued the most delicious conspirators against the human stomach that can be found in the ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... did succeed in catching one in his claws the others would throw caution to the winds and all be down upon him at once. He sat there, straight and stiff, for a while, snapping his terrible beak and hissing at them like an angry cat. Till at last, realizing that there was no more chance of a peaceful sleep for him there, he spread his huge, downy wings and sailed off smoothly to seek some more secluded neighborhood. The whole flock pursued him, with their tormenting and abuse, for perhaps ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... solitary horseman had also come into the picture and was riding slowly across. The desire of murder rose in my heart. Now for a bag! Bang! I jumped at least a foot, disarranging the telescope, but there was plenty of time to reset it while the shell was hissing and roaring its way through nearly five miles of air. I found the kraal again and the group still there, but all motionless and alert, like startled rabbits. Then they began to bob into the earth, one after the other. Suddenly, in ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... than three feet. Mary gave all of us the same hallucination. Her first try was a pretty sad kind of a snake, but it was bigger than the nine-by-twelve rug it squirmed on, and was making right for Elmer's legs, hissing ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had gone away, and Captain MacWhirr could feel against his ear the pulsation of the engines, like the beat of the ship's heart. Mr. Rout's voice down there shouted something distantly. The ship pitched headlong, the pulsation leaped with a hissing tumult, and stopped dead. Captain MacWhirr's face was impassive, and his eyes were fixed aimlessly on the crouching shape of the second mate. Again Mr. Rout's voice cried out in the depths, and the pulsating beats ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... suppressed laughter, hands are clasped in warm affection, young kind voices ring one above the other; while a little farther, at the end of the snug room, other hands, young too, fly with unskilled fingers over the keys of the old piano, and the Lanner waltz cannot drown the hissing ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... having a light in his hand that looked like a lantern—went and unlocked Jess's stable, and patted her pretty head. At first she started, but soon she grew quiet and pleased, and let him do what he chose with her. He began rubbing her down, making the same funny hissing with his mouth that Bill did, and all grooms do—I never could find out why. But Jess evidently liked it, and ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... condensed mist. The shuddering of the ship with her motors going dead slow. The tinkling, muted notes of the piano inside the saloon. The washing and hissing of the waves overside. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... raising himself on his stirrups, made at Codadad with his dreadful cimeter. The blow was so violent, that it would have put an end to the young prince, had not he avoided it by a sudden spring. The cimeter made a horrible hissing in the air: but, before the black could have time to make a second blow, Codadad struck him on his right arm with such force that he cut it off. The dreadful cimeter fell with the hand that held it, and the black, yielding under ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... midst of their lightsomeness, Triffitt, who faced a mirror, started, dropped his cigarette, upset his liqueur glass and turned pale. For an instant he clutched the tablecloth, staring straight in front of him; then with a great effort he controlled his emotion and with a cautious hissing of his breath, ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... foresails before the watch went below. The wind was on the quarter, strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... type of man hitherto known to an abstract statement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous company: say that, like Copernicus and Galileo, he was immovably convinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver of perpetual motion. We cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of test. If we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of banishment in the wrong case, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot |
