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More "Snatch" Quotes from Famous Books



... tent and then at Dion with an air of profound astonishment. The quail dropped from his hands, and he did not even snatch at them as he listened to the remarkable sounds which, he could not doubt, flowed from his Amazon. His brows came down over his fiery eyes, and he seemed to stand at gaze like an animal, half-fascinated and half-suspicious. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... morsel, but it put new life into him, and he gathered fresh armfuls of sticks and sapling boughs until the fire burned Philip's face and his drying clothes sent up clouds of steam. Once, a hundred yards out in the plain, Philip heard the outlaw burst into a snatch of wild forest song as he pulled ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... an unwomanly action if she obey the impulse of her heart, and work diligently by the side of men whose work it is? If she see "another woman's bairnie" in trouble, is she not right to rush into the streets and snatch him from the danger which threatens him, as the horses come tearing by, and the huge and laden vehicles shake the houses? And is she less a woman, if, seeing these children grown up to manhood, she beholds them exposed to greater dangers than their childhood ever knew, and hastens to their rescue ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... an axe!" cried the master; "down with the main-mast!" and seizing a hatchet which lay at hand, Piero Quirini struck the first blow at the tall mast, whose weight was dragging down the vessel. Others with sword, or axe, or any tool which they could snatch at the moment, followed, and they were but just in time, for before another wave could wash over the vessel, the mast was floating free, and the ship had righted once more. The water was baled out with every vessel on which ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... serenade, but lay sleeping by the fire until Dick and his companions rose to take leave of their host, and return to the camp of the fur-traders. The remainder of that night was spent in making preparations for setting forth on the morrow, and when, at grey dawn, Dick and Crusoe lay down to snatch a few hours' repose, the yells and howling in the Snake camp were going on as vigorously ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... way to put up strawberries and spiced currants. But when big drops came suddenly plashing against the windows and a lively peal of thunder rolled overhead, then there was a scattering in the sitting-room. The aunties scampered out through a side door to snatch some clothes from the grass-plot, and to gather up the bright tin pans and pails that had been sunning on the long benches. Grandma, throwing her apron over her head, ran to see that some precious young turkeys were under ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... rock-bound Andromeda, with the devouring monster Society careering up to make a mouthful of her; and himself whirling down on his winged horse—just Pegasus turned Rosinante for the nonce—to cut her bonds, snatch her up, and whirl her back into ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage of its decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any month of its existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical formulae as we like, and give them specific names; but it is evident that this is child's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... sending against you his countless warriors, drowned in steel, and provided with every store and description of arms. What can you oppose to them? You have no other weapons than your swords, no provisions but those that you may snatch from the hands of your enemies; you must therefore attack them immediately, or otherwise your wants will increase; the gales of victory may no longer blow in your favor, and perchance the fear that lurks in the hearts of your enemies may be changed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... cage: Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years, Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep, And close confined to their own palace, sleep. From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky. As into air the purer spirits flow, And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below, So flew the soul to its congenial place, Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. But thou, false guardian of a charge too ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... In the absence of royal protection, the slayer of a person guilty of the slaughter of a Brahmana would not obtain any reward; on the other hand the person guilty of Brahmanicide would enjoy perfect immunity. In the absence of royal protection, men would snatch other people's wealth from their very hands, and all wholesome barriers would be swept away, and everybody, inspired with fear, would seek safety in flight. In the absence of royal protection, all kinds of injustice would set in; an intermixture of castes would take place; and famine would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Then why should he dispaire that knowes to court it With words, faire lookes, and liberality: What hast not thou full often strucke a Doe, And borne her cleanly by the Keepers nose? Aron. Why then it seemes some certaine snatch or so ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... profligates in London, a man of low birth and lower tastes, a haunter of taverns, the terror of all decent women, and a roystering swashbuckler, with a sword as ready to leap at a word as his lips to snatch a kiss from ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... 'We wanted to snatch a laurel from your wreath,' was his hasty greeting to Hillner, who, after his father's fall, was once more, with his uninjured hand, doing vigorous work ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... scarce could know they live, but that they bite. But, as the rich, when tired with daily feasts, For change, become their next poor tenant's guests; Drink hearty draughts of ale from plain brown bowls, And snatch the homely rasher from the coals: So you, retiring from much better cheer, For once, may venture to do penance here. And since that plenteous autumn now is past, Whose grapes and peaches have indulged your taste, Take in good part, from our poor poet's ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... desperate undertaking in the face of such heavy odds, for in all his divisions he had only some six thousand men, and even these were scattered. The single hope was that by his own skill and courage he could snatch victory from a situation where victory seemed impossible. With the instinct of a great commander he saw that his only chance was to fight the British detachments suddenly, unexpectedly, and separately, and to do this not only required secrecy and perfect ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... rules were made but to promote their end) Some lucky license answer to the full Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule. Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, May boldly deviate from the common track; From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which without passing through the judgment, gains The heart, and all its end at once attains. In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes, Which out of nature's common order rise, The shapeless ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... to snatch the sceptre from a kingly tyrant. The present struggle is to put whips into the hands of Rebel slavemongers with which to compel work without wages, and thus give wicked power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... public emotion—even as the incident itself to-day reminds me of the family-party smallness of the old New York, those happy limits that could make us all care, and care to fond vociferation, for the same thing at once. It was a moment of the golden age—representing too but a snatch of elation, since the wretched Arctic had gone down in mortal woe and her other companion, the Pacific, leaving England a few months later and under the interested eyes of our family group, then temporarily settled in London, was never heard of more. Let ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... struck Roaring Bill for his audacity. She had not realized what an altogether disreputable appearance a normally good-looking young woman could acquire in two weeks on the trail, with no toilet accessories and only the clothes on her back. She tried to snatch the mirror from him, but Bill eluded her reach, and laid the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the sunrise or the scenery always "indescribable," while the appetite of the guides lends itself to such reiterated description? These are questions which suggest themselves to quiet critics, but hardly to the group in the hotel. They have found the hole where the hero is to snatch a few hours of sleep before commencing the ascent. They have followed him in imagination round the edge of the crevasses. All the old awe and terror that disappeared in his presence revive at the eloquent description of the arete. There is a gloom over us ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... Enjoyment.—Whatever advantage we snatch beyond the certain portion allotted us by nature is like money spent before it is due, which at the time of regular payment will be missed ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... the tone of a courageous dog, from which you snatch the bone it has legitimately gained; "I disturb myself! Ah! Monsieur d'Artagnan, how ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... you asked me was hopeless. Your father would have been against you, for the sake of the Sainfoys; your mother, for opposite reasons. There was one chance, Herve himself. I saw that he was very angry at the Ratoneau proposal; I thought he might snatch at an alternative. I still think he might have done so, if you had not behaved like a maniac. It was the moment, Angelot; such moments do not return. I was striking while the iron was hot—you, you only, made my idea useless. You made me look even more mad and foolish than yourself—not ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... added decisively. "It would be perfectly easy for any dishonest young woman to go through the houses without being questioned. Perhaps she got frightened and didn't notice Babbie's money on that account or didn't have time to snatch up anything ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... was beginning to burn, for it seemed as if it must at the next move, thrust its iron hand into that underground world where the plot was hatching, and clutching the heart of the great enterprise, snatch it, conspiracy and conspirators, into the light of day. But it was at such a tremendous moment of danger, that the leaders, unawed by the imminency of discovery, took a step to throw the city off of their scent, so daring, dextrous ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... Drew caught a snatch of sentence passed between the leader of the newcomers and his own officer. He recognized the voice of John ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... had never seen brightened with the light of a smile. Yet their eyes gleamed when the whistling lash fell upon their shoulders or when a passer-by threw them the chewed and broken stub of a cigar, which the nearest would snatch up and hide in his salakot, while the rest remained gazing at the passers-by ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... hundred feet high, sheer as a wall. Into this shadowy canon, silent as death, crept the boats of the white men, vainly straining their eyes for glimpse of egress from the watery defile. A word, a laugh, the snatch of a voyageur's ditty, came back with elfin echo, as if spirits hung above the dizzy heights spying on the intruders. Springs and tenuous, wind-blown falls like water threads trickled down each side of the lofty rocks. The water was so deep that poles did not touch bottom, and there ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... when the Esquire laid down his pen; though he could not but foresee that several scribblers would soon snatch it up, which he might (one would think) easily have prevented: he scorned to take any further care about it, but left the field fairly open to any worthy successor. Immediately, some of our Wits were for forming themselves into a Club, headed by one ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... on the prudent Ant thy heedless eyes, Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise; No stern command, no monitory voice, Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice; Yet, timely provident, she hastes away To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... he is a born friend of the Muses so called, and never neglects an opportunity. Wonderful to see how, in such an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation, with a whole breaking world lying on his shoulders, as it were,—he always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody presumably of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... to me? Who is this man you have with you? where does he come from? Are you such a fool as not to know he is a tool of the Adams, and that you are acting with him? I cannot be with you. If I had my liberty I would hurry to your side, snatch you from this villain, and plunge my knife so deep into him that he would never know he had received a blow!!! Why are you so foolish? Do you love me? You have often said you did. You know I have done all in my power to make you ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... streets, and lay along in the open fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations, whom they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to perish in them, tho they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any man offer to check the fire: so repeated were the menaces of many who forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw firebrands, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... through poverty and disease, for finding him when his own mother had given him up for dead, and restoring him to the bosom of his family. It looks as though they feared that this old man, already trembling on the brink of the grave, would snatch some comfort for his remaining days out of the pittance that he might hope to collect from this vast estate for services that ought to be beyond price. It looks as though hatred and jealousy were combined in a desperate effort to crush the counsel for the plaintiff. The counsel for the plaintiff ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... heart of hearts that he could have walked round Josephine, in the old days, now speaks with manly pride of his sister, the Professor. His own bent, however, has always been so painfully strong that he even yet tries to snatch spare moments for his researches; but the strain in so many directions has broken down his health. People always told him that a man's constitution was not fitted for severe brain-work. He supposes it ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... that it was not hers until she had made it her own by choosing and willing to be good-tempered when she was disinclined—holding it fast with the hand of determination when the hand of wrong would snatch it from her. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... who snatch gentlemens swords from their sides. He drew the cull's tayle rumly; he snatched ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... scorn, who, sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat. Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me; He whose nervous paw can take My lady's lapdog by the neck, With furious hiss attack the hen, And snatch a chicken ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or to keep ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... but under the control of an old monk, and she always came attired in great splendour like a lady. The two lovers had no other license than to see each other, and to speak to each other, without being able to snatch the smallest atom of pleasure, and always grew their love ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... job" in all his life. And it really was a curious sight. The hedgehog, with the merriest twinkle in his eyes, would take the worms out of my hand; and when I dangled them five or six inches off the ground, he would rear up on his hindlegs and snatch and grab until he secured them. Then he would sit up and scratch himself like a dog. He would allow me to take him up in my hands and stroke him, and yet not retire into his bristly shell. He ate ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... house and make such preparations as were necessary for his dismal ride over the mountains to Fairbanks. She had the supper dishes to wash up in Tennie's absence, and as she was a busy little housewife she found herself singing a snatch of song as she passed back and forth from dining-room to kitchen. He heard it, too, and smiled to himself as he bolted the windows on the ground floor and examined the locks of the three lower doors, and when he finally came into the kitchen with his greatcoat ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... courser, taking on her lap the carcass of a lamb or goat, and setting off at full gallop, followed by the bridegroom and other young men of the party, also on horseback; she is always to strive, by adroit turns, etc., to avoid her pursuers, that no one approach near enough to snatch from her the burden on her lap. This game, called koekbueri (green wolf), is in use among all the nomads of central Asia." (A. Vambery, Travels in Central ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and seek for water, and there was none. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to mock thee and hold out cups of water, and when thou didst grasp them and put them to my father's lips, they turned to parchment. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to turn into demons and snatch my father's body from thee, and the parchments shrivelled up, and blood ran everywhere instead of them, and fire upon the blood, till they all vanished, and the plain was bare and stony again, and thou wast alone in the midst of ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... shrieked Giacobbe, who was bending over him, with ear intent to snatch the weak syllables from his ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... all men drank with him, and the hearts of the Earls arose, As of them that snatch forth glory from the deadly wall of foes: With the joy of life were they drunken and no man knew for why, And the voice of their exultation rose up in an awful cry; —It is joy in the mouths that utter, it is hope in the hearts that crave, And think of no gainsaying, and remember nought ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... be found in a thing which is no bigger than a cabbage, and which, on occasion, an executioner might strike off at a blow, and suddenly smother that world in darkness and night. The world, I say, would vanish, did not heads grow like mushrooms, and were there not always plenty of them ready to snatch it up as it is sinking down into nothing, and keep it going like a ball. This world is an idea which they all have in common, and they express the community of their ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... Spirit, too, our hearts we pray, That somebody's boy We may watch for, and snatch from the ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... kin walk biggity, en dey kin talk biggity, en mo'n dat, dey kin feel biggity, but yit all de same deyer gwine ter git kotch up wid. Dey go 'long en dey go 'long, en den bimeby yer come trouble en snatch um slonchways, en de mo' bigger w'at dey is, de wusser does dey ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... was pacing up and down his study, seeking a solution of this frightful problem, asking himself what was to be done.... He saw that this miserable Vinson was caught in the wheels of a terrible machine, from which it was almost impossible to snatch him into safety. Nevertheless, his conscience revolted at the idea that he should do nothing to avert this wretched lad's suicide. He must stop Vinson—he must certainly save him from himself at any price, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... days, Or sit in dull dominion over time; But this—to drink fate's utmost at a draught, Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip, To scale the summit of some soaring moment, Nor know the dulness of the long descent, To snatch the crown of life and seal it up Secure forever ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... balance of judgement, and practical sagacity. The sole important issue was the encouraging of the peace party at Paris, with a view to the revocation of the aggressive decrees of the Convention. In private, Fox had admitted that they were wholly indefensible; and yet, in order to snatch an oratorical triumph, he fired off a diatribe which could not but stiffen the necks of the French Jacobins. At such a crisis the true statesman merges the partisan in the patriot and says not a word to weaken ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... him in the estimation of Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to snatch at him. Scattergood grinned. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... a goldfish, All in a little bowl; I wouldn't worry whether I really had a soul. I'd glide about through sun and shade And snatch up little gnats, My heaven would be summer My hell—well, ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... our flowers lest they are plundered by the passing winds. It quickens our blood and brightens our eyes to snatch kisses that would vanish if we delayed. Our life is eager, our desires are keen, for time tolls the bell of parting. Brother, keep that ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore

... domineering though I may be, I should probably never care to bring the child's condition to her notice again. There was something about her—something volcanic in her femininity. I knew it would never do. Better let the thing continue to be a monstrosity! I might, unnoticed, of course, snatch a bun from ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... yet to live. No instrument of my deliverance was within reach. I was powerless. To rush from the presence of these women to hide me forever from their scrutiny and their upbraiding, to snatch from their minds all traces of the existence of Clithero, was ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... in one pocket after another, while Cynthia clung to the colt's bridle, and he was uncertain till the last whether he had any letter for her. When it appeared she made a flying snatch at it and ran; and the comedy was over, to be repeated in some form the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... which perhaps has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfully finding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by the greatest German man, sounds like a stanza in the grand Road Song and Marching Song of our great Teutonic kindred,—wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... a fine breezy day, clear and sunshiny, save where the shadows of a few dense piled-up clouds swept dark athwart the landscape. In the secluded recesses of the valley all was hot, heavy and still; though now and then a fitful snatch of a breeze, the mere fragment of some broken gust that seemed to have lost its way, tossed for a moment the white cannach of the bogs, or raised spirally into the air, for a few yards, the light beards of some seeding thistle, and straightway let them down ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... mentioning. Toni, the small Fijian who had chanted the song of Black Fernando's hell, was caught by a huge wave and pounded hard against the cabin. The mad turmoil of water swept his nearly lifeless form into the scuppers, but before another comber could snatch him overboard, I managed to reach his side and drag ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... instincts,' he continued, 'but our intellectual and our spiritual passions as well. To force our will in the obedience of a higher will, to leave behind all our mundane desires in the pursuit of the one great desire, herein lies the essence of true virtue. St. Anthony would snatch his hours of devotion from the Devil. Even prayer to him was a struggle, an effort not to feel the joy of it. Yes, we must always disobey our impulses, and resist the tyranny of our desires. When I have a strong desire to pray, I go out into the vineyard and work. When ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... Their exhibitions of it may seem superb,—such power and such restraint, combined, are noble,—but a quality carried to excess defeats itself. Kings who won't lift their scepters must yield in the end; and, the worst of it is, to upstarts who snatch at their crowns. ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... money. If you held out to him a penny in one hand and a threepenny-bit in the other, he would snatch at the threepence, and then break his heart because he could not get the penny in as well. You might safely have left him in the room with a leg of mutton, but it would not have been wise to leave your ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... elements: the lyric, for it was first chanted to some stringed instrument; the epic, for it tells a tale, often of solemn and ancient report; the dramatic, for its actors are ever ready to start forward into life, snatch the word from the mouth of the narrator, and speak in their own persons. All these forms have been used for the utterance of religious thought and feeling. Of the lyrical poems of England, religion possesses the most; of the epic, the best; of ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... entanglements, the girl's speedy death would prove the most felicitous solution of this devouring riddle, which so unexpectedly crossed his smooth path; then what meant the vehement protest of his throbbing heart, the passionate longing to snatch her from disease, and disgrace, and keep her safe forever in the close cordon of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... a wonderful fisherman, who could snatch a fish from the water in his sure claws. But for all that, he was not so wonderful as Uncle Sam, who could catch a ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... lived through each day with tight-shut lips, conscious of one clear thing in her mist of unhappy bewilderment—that Bob must not know: Bob, who would probably leave his job of skimming through the air of her beloved France after the Hun, and snatch an hour to fly to England and annihilate the entire Rainham household, returning with Cecilia tucked away somewhere in his aeroplane. It was a pleasant dream, and served to carry her through more than one hard moment. But it did not always serve; and there were ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... reached Rabbit Island—a small wooded island where the passing dog drivers always stop in winter to make tea and snatch a mouthful of hard biscuit while the dogs have ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... of the surrounding deserts, and the still more menacing silence of Alexander. It was not the faint sound of the footsteps of our soldiers wandering in this vast sepulchre, that could rouse our Emperor from his reverie, and snatch him from his painful recollections ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... such windows as were glazed, and let in the light. I next proceeded to make up the fire, but upon my lifting a log for that purpose, there was one universal outcry of horror, and old Rose, attempting to snatch it from me, exclaimed, 'Let alone, missis—let be—what for you lift wood—you have nigger enough, missis, to do it!' I hereupon had to explain to them my view of the purposes for which hands and arms were appended to our bodies, and forthwith began making Rose tidy up the miserable ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... not the whole of any song," cried Victorine; but broke, as she said it, into a snatch of a carol which seemed to the poor infatuated man at the foot of the stairway like the song of an angel. He hurried out, and threw himself down under the pear-tree where he had lain before. The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... to her call, the elevator shot up to the second floor, and Tryon Dunham stepped out in time to see the two men snatch Mary's hands again and attempt to bind ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... degree of its attention and its power of comprehension, it is in my power. The other foe I have to overcome is in myself. It is the infinite variety of forms, phenomena, laws, and the multitude of ideas of my own and other people's conditioned by them. Every moment I must have the skill to snatch out of that vast mass of material what is most important and necessary, and, as rapidly as my words flow, clothe my thought in a form in which it can be grasped by the monster's intelligence, and may arouse its attention, and at the same time one must keep a sharp lookout that one's thoughts are ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... slow Ravish, v., to snatch Reclaim, n., (hawking}, the calling back of a hawk Refudation, n., a process in which vinegar is poured on lead, distilled off, and again suffered to act on it Relief, n., a dessert Rese, v., to rush on anyone Resolve, v., to loosen, weaken, to dissolve Rheum, ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... round his hand he was dragged sideways, and but for Poole's ready help would have been pulled off the chair helplessly on to the deck. Fortunately for him the skipper's son was on the qui vive, and stopping the convalescent's progress with one hand, he made a snatch at the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... dreams, his withered hopes Thou knowest, The baffled yearnings of his heart to snatch From paths unhallowed childhood's tottering feet, And lay a rosy smile on little lips With homeless hunger pale, to curses trained, Whereon no kiss hath ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... our poor lot is cast, Or this the last, Which on the crumbling rocks has dashed Etruscan seas, Strain clear the wine; this life is short, at best. Take hope with zest, And, trusting not To-morrow, snatch To-day for ease! ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field

... It drives things past us in a hurrying flock. We snatch at them. And those we miss seem lost for ever because some one calls out, in a foolish voice of terror and regret, 'Too late!' Yet, in reality, we stand still; the rush of the hours is a sham. We see things out of proportion, like trees from the window of a train, their beauty hidden in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor, dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from which I fear she must be moved to an hospital.... My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt.... God Almighty have us well in his keeping!" Lamb assumed the tender care of his ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... yet time—time to snatch this poor soul from everlasting darkness. I believe—I believe in thy infinite love. What is my love or my pleading? It is quenched in thine. I can only clasp her in my weak arms and urge her with my weak pity. Thou—thou wilt breathe on the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... was enthroned in her heart. It was sweet to meet her laughing glance, dear fellow-conspirator. It was sweet every morning and night to have the intimate little talk through the telephone. And it was sweetest of all to snatch a precious hour with her alone. Of such vain and foolish things is made all that is ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... after nine and had to be on the road at half past ten I don't need to tell you that the cook had no time to clear up after himself. He had just time—with his mouth full of food—to throw his apron on the floor, snatch up his gun and his knapsack and buckle himself into shape as he sprinted up the hill to ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... some convenient spot overhanging the water, and securing its finny prey with a lightning-like grasp of the claw as it passes beneath the white clad fisher. Sometimes it will sail over the surface of a stream, and snatch the fish as they rise for food. It is also a great lover of lemmings, and in the destruction of these quadruped pests does infinite service ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... to the window and strayed out onto the balcony. Nick followed her with enlacing arm. The canal below them lay in moonless shadow, barred with a few lingering lights. A last snatch of gondola-music came from far off, carried upward on a ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... away, declaring himself a perfect cure. And Forsythe and Barrington agreed, that after such a brilliant finale it was as well to beat a retreat: just as some gentlemen, at the close of an evening visit, relate a witty anecdote, or sparkle out a brilliant repartee, snatch up their hats, make their bows, and leave you in the middle of a laugh. But another adventure was in store for them, which had not entered into their calculations at all. The play-bills show us that after a tragedy there generally comes a farce: the case was reversed with them, for they had ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... north-east, and the thermometer outside stood at thirty-five degrees. Jean Cornbutte was in agony, and his son had searched in vain for some remedy with which to relieve his pain. On this day, however, throwing himself suddenly on Vasling, he managed to snatch a lemon from him which he ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... said—indeed a general complaint— That no one has succeeded in describing The monde, exactly as they ought to paint: Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint, To furnish matter for their moral gibing; And that their books have but one style in common— My Lady's prattle, filtered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... was worn out and could not rest; twenty times in the night he would awake with a start from a sleep haunted by nightmares. It was only in the blue chamber, in Elodie's arms, that he could snatch a few hours' slumber. He talked and cried out in his sleep and used often to awake her; but she could make nothing of what ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... doves breasting the wave. Hitherto the young warrior had held aloof in coldness of courtesy from Bhanavar; but now he sat by her, and said, 'The bond between my prince and Rukrooth is accomplished, and it was to snatch thee from the Chief of the Beni-Asser and bring thee even to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... their memory, as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell them that compared to disunion all ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... unafflicted, bear Such manly merit in distress, beset By cruel foes, and faction's savage cry? My good, my gracious mistress, stretch, betimes, Your saving arm, and snatch him from destruction, From deadly malice, treachery, and Cecil. Oh, let him live, to clear his conduct up! My gracious queen, he'll nobly earn your bounty, And with his dearest blood ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... and hove to for the night. The apprehension of danger to himself must then have ceased; but he neither attempted to work up in the smooth water, nor sent any of his boats to see whether some unfortunate individuals were not clinging to the wrecks, whom he might snatch from the sharks or save from a more lingering death; it was safer, in his estimation, to continue on his voyage and publish that we were all lost, as he did not fail to do on his ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... Miss Mitford,—I this moment have your note; and as a packet of ours is going to England, I snatch up a pen to do what I can with it in the brief moments between this and post time. I don't wait till it shall be possible to write at length, because I have something immediate to say to you. Your ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... ex-guardsman, and he at once suspected that Legard was about to repair to Paris as his rival. He sighed, and looked round the spacious apartment, and gazed on the wide prospects of grove and turf that extended from the window, and said to himself, "Is another to snatch these from my grasp?" His impatience to visit Mrs. Leslie, to gain ascendency over Lady Vargrave, to repair to Paris, to scheme, to manoeuvre, to triumph, accelerated the progress of the disease that was now burning in his veins; and the hand that ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... good ostriches in the desert as ever came out, though they are fowl instead of fish. It's my belief we shall snatch out of that nest a better game-cock bird than ever the goblin was, and without ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... hall? If it was a burglar, he certainly must not come upstairs, or she would die of fright. An idea occurred to her, and acting on a sudden impulse she dashed into Dormitory 2, roused the others, and told them to snatch what missiles they could, and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... thickets. It was a pathetic figure, this fleeing human creature, whether chased by dogs and men or pursued only by the terrors that hide themselves behind the vast shadows of the night; and the figure grew more pathetic when, as it seemed, it sprang out of the very elements themselves to snatch her son from the floods. The old lady sighed and pressed her thin lips together. She had made up ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... friend," he cried, with a dramatic gesture and a fierce snatch at that side of his mustache which invariably failed him ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... muses, pour the pitying tear For Pollio snatch'd away: For had he liv'd another year! —He had not ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... to be a spy, as the coat and cap which his master used in traveling. Had Mr. Bowmore discovered (since the afternoon) that he was really in danger? Had the necessities of instant flight only allowed him time enough to snatch his coat and cap out of the hall? And had the treacherous manservant seen him as he was making his escape to the post-chaise? The cook's conclusions answered all these questions in the affirmative—and, if Captain Bervie's words of warning had been correctly reported, the cook's conclusion for once ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... villager, In whom his oft-told tale awoke no fears, Such as he filled his gaping listeners with. Nor ever was there break in his discourse, Save when with gray eyes lifted to the moon, He conjured from the past strange instances Of kidnapp'd infants, from their cradles snatch'd, And changed for elvish sprites; of blights, and blains, Sent on the cattle by the vengeful fairies; Of blasted crops, maim'd limbs, and unsound minds, All plagues inflicted by these angered sprites. Then would he pause, and wash his story down With ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... a new pestilence—the Sweating Sickness—which had appeared in Germany and at Wittenberg itself. It was a plague, known already many years before, which used to attack its victims with fever, sweat, thirst, intense pain and exhaustion, and snatch them off with fearful rapidity. Luther knew well the danger of it when once it actually appeared. But he watched without terror the supposed symptoms of its appearance at Wittenberg, and remarked that the sickness there was mainly caused by fright. On the 27th he told another friend how the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... stories fully live up to the promise of its outside (what stories could?), but they have amongst them one, from which both title and picture are taken, of very unusual and haunting quality. So, if you should only be able to snatch so much time from work of National importance as suffices to read a single tale, begin at the start, and be assured of having the best. Not that the others are without their attractions, though one is rather gratuitously revolting. Laid in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... slab of dark-veined marble was to be inscribed with the names of buried ones. They doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate, and growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her up, and waft her heavenward. But still she watched the daily growth of the Temple; and so did old Walter Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff, and giving ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... fair Freedom hither, And lo, the desert smiled, A paradise of pleasure Was opened in the wild. Your harvest, bold Americans, No power shall snatch away. Huzza, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... wait at least a fortnight more before reaching a final decision. His correspondence with this sister may be found fully spread out in his journal,* and is a model of devout carefulness lest he should snatch at a gift that might be prompted by wrong motives or given with an unprepared heart. When finally given, unexpected hindrances arose affecting her actual possession and transfer, so that more than a third of a year elapsed before ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... serious matter. The emperor, guessing that this was the work of Virgilius, besought him to break the spell. Then Virgilius ordered a scaffold to be erected in the market-place, and Febilla to be brought clothed in a single white garment. And further, he bade every one to snatch fire from the maiden, and to suffer no neighbour to kindle it. And when the maiden appeared, clad in her white smock, flames of fire curled about her, and the Romans brought some torches, and some straw, and some shavings, and fires were kindled ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... better to live a free life on the sea, even if certain at last to be overpowered by a Danish fleet, than to lurk a hunted fugitive in the woods; but I cannot do it. So long as I live I must remain among my people, ready to snatch any chance that may offer of striking a blow against the invader. But for you ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... voracious sharks were not permitted to vanquish their prey, for man, far more powerful with his instruments of death, was about to take a hand and snatch it from them. Gathered around the lagoon were the companions of Ker Karraje, every whit as ferocious as the sharks themselves, and well deserving the same name, for ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... pulled down one of the men, and with a single shake, terrier-like, had broken his neck. Then he was upon another. In their efforts to vanquish the wolf-dog the savages forgot all about me, thus giving me an instant in which to snatch a knife from the loin-string of him who had first fallen and account for another of them. Almost simultaneously the hyaenodon pulled down the remaining enemy, crushing his skull with a single bite of those ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the approach of evening broke off the conflict, and the two sides separated to snatch a brief repose, the emperor, after due reflection, resolved to change his plans. Although many reasons of great urgency pressed him to force on the destruction of Phoenice, as of a fortress which would prove an impregnable barrier to the inroads ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... concessions required of them, was "the right to be represented on this floor, provided they will also consent not to vote for the men who are to represent them! The very price by which we seek to induce their assent to these amendments we snatch away from their hands the moment that assent is secured. Is there any man here who can so far delude himself as to suppose for a moment that the people of the Southern States will accede to any such scheme as this? There is not one chance in ten ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... dangerous to snatch meat away from hungry dogs. If Kesshoo hadn't been slashing at them with his whip, and if Menie and Koko hadn't been screaming at them with all their might, so the dogs were nearly distracted, Koolee might have been ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... contents of Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S book of short stories fully live up to the promise of its outside (what stories could?), but they have amongst them one, from which both title and picture are taken, of very unusual and haunting quality. So, if you should only be able to snatch so much time from work of National importance as suffices to read a single tale, begin at the start, and be assured of having the best. Not that the others are without their attractions, though one is rather gratuitously revolting. Laid in the picturesque eighteenth century, they all exhibit Miss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... just defunct, for the purgatorial garments fit him not, he stumbles at every step, and when he trips an underdress is unveiled that's like a City waiter's. What is he—the arch conspirator—doing himself? He starts, tries to conceal a book, but we snatch it from him. Sketches! lots of sketches! caricatures, low and vulgar portraits of ourselves! 'What are you?' we scream, 'and why this orgy? Speak, caitiff, or for ever hold ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... snatch it out of your hand without further ceremony," said my father. And, dashing his skinny fingers through the bars, this was, I regret to say, precisely what the little gentleman did. I was quite taken aback; but ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... their course, Or to a different aim diverts their force. He, in a happier land, by freedom bless'd, Had hallow'd virtue dawn'd upon his breast, Had done some glorious deed, to stamp his name High on the roll of ever-during fame; Snatch'd from Oppression's jaws some victim realm, Or fix'd in stable peace his country's wavering helm. But baleful Guilt usurp'd with fatal care A heart which Virtue had been proud to share; And turn'd to hateful ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... at them from her height with all the headlong thump of a gannet after its prey. Loveday's dive was as the gull's for grace contrasted with it. Their hands met; Loveday divined in an instant, by the tug of Cherry's, that she was suspected of trying to snatch the fairings, instead of merely restoring them, and she straightened herself with a return of her sick anger. Cherry clutched the frail morsels of riband and lace in her lap, then, seeing there was no danger, began to straighten them out, scolding ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... soldiers worked well, tugging at ropes, while the sailors used levers to get the guns up steep places. Edgar was kept busy translating the first lieutenant's orders to the Turkish officers, and for the first three days had hardly time to snatch a meal until the sailors returned at nightfall to the ship. He got on very well with the lieutenant of the marines, who was a pleasant young fellow. On the day after they landed they heard heavy firing, and going up to the highest point of the rocky ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... would sit and dream. She would gradually cease sewing and, with her hands idle, and forgetting her surroundings, she would weave one of those romances of her girlhood and be lost in some enchanting adventure. But suddenly Julien's voice giving some orders to old Simon would snatch her abruptly from her dreams, and she would take up her work again, saying: "That is all over," and a tear would fall on her hands as she plied ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... filed a bill in the Senate which would add a complete wing to the Smithsonian to house this satellite and other similar historic objects. In later testimony Mr. Orville Larkin, leader of the unnamed committee representing those in opposition to the CCSB stated that his group felt that to snatch Beta from orbit at this moment of its greatest glory would be contrary to natural law and that he and his supporters would never concede to any ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy

... mind has convoked from the middle region, where he was appointed to wait the signal; and who is now permitted to act in concert with thy will. Is not this the language of thy heart?—"Whatever pleasure I can snatch from the hand of time, as he passes by me, I will secure for myself: my passions shall be strong, that my enjoyments may be great; for what is the portion allotted to man, but the joyful madness that prolongs the hours of festivity, the fierce delight that is extorted ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth

... be heard of the high feasting going on in the great house was a haunting snatch of music drifting now and again into the night on the soft air. Yet Wardo knew that in the Hall of Columns, with its rare frescoes, its lights and perfumes and flowers, men and women, robed in the splendor of their wealth and station, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... seemed to her the most demoralizing of the passions...there had been something ennobling, expanding, soul-stirring in hating the brutal mediaeval race that had devastated France...but in the reaction from her fierce registered vow to snatch a man from a forlorn unhappy woman no matter what her claims and have him for her own, she had shrunk from this new revelation of her depths in horror....One could not live ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... HORRIBLE. And yet, if possible, more true than horrible. Yes, sure as the day of doom, when that fearful day shall come, and lord Cornwallis, stript of his "brief authority", shall stand, a trembling ghost before that equal bar: then shall the evil spirit, from the black budget of his crimes, snatch the following bloody order, and grinning an insulting smile, flash it ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... From the first, my love for you has been the one unselfish impulse of my life, and since I have almost lost hope of ever being worthy of you, I should not have permitted you to share my wretched life, even had you been willing. But for you to come to me and to give me your love, only to snatch it back again before I have had time to refuse the ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... so badly. When you have found the ring I will come down again and make you my wife. But as a punishment for breaking your promise, you must always scratch the ground to look for the ring. And every chicken of yours that I find, I shall snatch away." ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole

... we saw I placed my harp against the trunk and sat down on the grass. The dogs sat opposite me, Capi in the middle, Dulcie at one side, Zerbino on the other. Pretty-Heart, who was not tired, stood up on the watch, ready to snatch the first piece that he could. To eke out the meal was a delicate matter. I cut the bread into five parts, as near the same size as possible, and distributed the slices. I gave each a piece in turn, as though I were dealing cards. Pretty-Heart, who required less food than we, fared better, ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... said Nora wisely. "Don't plan too much, until you find out whether you can snatch her from the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... first thing the looters do when they enter a house is to snatch down the telephones and take them out to burn; for, as one rakish bandit explained, they were the talking-machines of the foreign devils and, if left, might reveal the names of ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... was full of noisy reservists drinking and smoking; and we were very glad indeed when the drums and bugles began to go about the streets, and one and all had to snatch shakoes and be off for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... my child, carry the basket gracefully and with a grave, demure face. Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace you so firmly at dawn,(1) that you belch wind like a weasel. Go forward, and have a care they don't snatch your jewels in ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... and Fergus sat opposite with his legs crossed and his hands in his breeches-pockets, leaning back in his chair, and staring now up at the ceiling, now straight forward at his hostess (in a manner that made me strongly inclined to kick him out of the room), now whistling sotto voce to himself a snatch of a favourite air, now interrupting the conversation, or filling up a pause (as the case might be) with some most impertinent question or remark. At one time it was,—'It, amazes me, Mrs. Graham, how you could choose such a dilapidated, rickety old place as this to live in. If you couldn't ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... magical calculations. Her son did not follow her in these speculations, but he rarely disputed the conclusions that she drew from her astrological studies. While she was turning night into day he was glad to entertain a few learned friends, for all the hours of leisure that he could snatch from his pursuit of fortune, he devoted to philosophy, and the most distinguished thinkers of Alexandria were happy to be received at the hospitable table of so rich a patron. He was charmed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... that he has endeavored to plant his snare for a simple dove. When he would snatch his prize, he may learn that I ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat. Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me; He whose nervous paw can take My lady's lapdog by the neck, With furious hiss attack the hen, And snatch a chicken ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... possible direction. Her crew was composed of some twenty venerable Greenwich-pensioner-looking old salts, who just managed to hobble about deck. The ends of all the running ropes, with the exception of the signal halyards and poop-down-haul, were rove through snatch-blocks, and led to the capstan or windlass, so that not a yard was braced or a sail set without ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... to my so-called bed, to try and snatch a few short hours' sleep, lulled by the music of the guns that have started ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... When starting full on fancy's gushing eye The mournful image of Parthenia's fate, That hour, O long beloved and long deplored! When blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts, Nor Hymen's honours gather'd for thy brow, Nor all thy lover's, all thy father's tears Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave; Thy agonising looks, thy last farewell 200 Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul As with the hand of Death. At once the shade More horrid nodded o'er me, and the winds ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... her call, the elevator shot up to the second floor, and Tryon Dunham stepped out in time to see the two men snatch Mary's hands again and attempt to ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... SNATCH. Any open lead for a rope: if not furnished with a sheave, it is termed a dumb snatch, as on the bows and quarters ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... behold it again. The stars sparkled above his head; the tintorea continued to approach. A vigorous blow with his tail struck the swimmer; Martin Paz felt his slimy scales brush his breast. The shark, in order to snatch at him, turned on his back and opened his jaws, armed with a triple row of teeth. Martin Paz saw the white belly of the animal gleam beneath the wave, and with a rapid hand struck ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne

... with a sinking heart. Had he really hoped she would give him another answer? He would have given pretty much anything—But there, that did no good. He could give only what he had. Things were never complete in this world; you had to snatch at them as they came or go without. Nobody could look into her face and draw back, nobody who had any courage. She had courage enough for anything—look at her mouth and chin and eyes! Where did it come from, that light? How could a face, a familiar face, become so the picture of hope, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... extra blankets and both of his own, and, as he sped toward the Mexican hut, he stopped several times by the way to dexterously snatch ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... he called in the help of France he must have known well that his ally, with a successful army in England, would prevent indeed the accession of Mary Tudor, but as surely would tear in pieces the paper title of the present queen and snatch the crown for his own Mary, the Queen of Scots, and the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... Dick and his companions rose to take leave of their host, and return to the camp of the fur-traders. The remainder of that night was spent in making preparations for setting forth on the morrow, and when, at grey dawn, Dick and Crusoe lay down to snatch a few hours' repose, the yells and howling in the Snake camp were going on ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... foremost of victorious persons, I will snatch (for thee) this prosperity of Yudhishthira, the son of Pandu, at the sight of which thou grievest so. Therefore, O king, let Yudhishthira the son of Kunti be summoned. By throwing dice a skilful man, himself uninjured, may vanquish one that hath no skill. Know, O Bharata, that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... FLAME,—no matter whence flame sprung From gums and spice, or else from straw and rottenness, So long as soul has power to make them burn, express What lights and warms henceforth, leaves only ash behind, Howe'er the chance: if soul be privileged to find Food so soon that, at first snatch of eye, suck of breath, It shall absorb ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... constantly repeated acts. In spite of the protests of his weakened will the trained nerves continue to repeat the acts even when the doer abhors them. What he at first chooses, at last compels. Man is as irrevocably chained to his deeds as the atoms are chained by gravitation. You can as easily snatch a pebble from gravitation's grasp as you can separate the minutest act of life from its inevitable effect upon character and destiny. "Children may be strangled," says George Eliot, "but deeds never, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... and hurried through the shop. Gertie followed. Conversation between the two ladies had been interrupted by the same cause and they were outside the doorway, looking on at a small crowd that acted as escort to an ambulance in charge of two policemen; the aim of every one appeared to be to snatch the privilege of securing a view of the man partly hidden by the brown hood of the conveyance. Mrs. Mills sent the customer across to obtain particulars, and remarking cheerfully to Mr. Trew and the girl, "You two off? Don't be late back, mind!" ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... I've got it. Mr. Mountjoy, the doctor is the curse of my mistress's life. I can't bear to see it. If we are not relieved of him somehow, I shall do something wrong. When I wait at table, and see him using his knife, I want to snatch it out of his hand, and stick it into him. I had a hope that my lord might turn him out of the house when they quarrelled. My lord is too wicked himself to do it. For the love of God, sir, help my mistress—or ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... emperor should connive at his escape! Or if he should be seized with a fit of suspicion, and return! Good Heaven! now that fortune favors me, I must snatch security while ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... but it had never come so close to him before. He got up presently and went to the door to listen for he knew not what. But there was no sound but the moan of the wind up the draughty staircase, and the sound of a prisoner singing somewhere above him a snatch of a song. He looked out presently, but there was nothing but the dark well of the staircase disappearing round to the left, and the glimmer of an oil lamp somewhere from the depths below him, with wavering shadows as the light was blown about by the gusts that came up ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... out. She did not want her father to know how miserable she was. Her childish soul was filled with bitterness, and her young life was being spoiled. Such of her pleasures as had not been taken from her were divested of all their charm. Almost her sole remaining joy was to snatch, now and then, a bit of clandestine love with her father, when, on some rare occasion, Aunt Jemima happened to be out ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... Postman, found himself in a moment lock'd in the close embraces of a Meg Merrilies; while a little bandy-legg'd representative of the late Sir Jeffery Dunstan, bawling out, Ould wigs, Ould wigs, made a snatch at the grave appendage of Justice, and completely dismantled the head of its august representative. This delayed him in his progress, but it was merely to witness the wig flying in the air, with as much mirth to the surrounding ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... as soon as we get things right at the ranch and maybe snatch an hour's rest. Depends on how much time we have. But we'll surely ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... However, I did not pause, caring not that the bitter recriminations I intended to hurl at her would bring forth the inevitable month's notice; that, at the first hint of her leaving me, at least a dozen of my neighbours would stretch out eager hands to snatch Elizabeth, a dozen different vacant sinks were ready for her selection. I did not care, I say; I had loved my vases and in that moment I ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as well as he had commanded; she seemed anxious to do better. Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... any house"—we read in the report of conditions in New Jersey—"knock at almost any door and you will find a weary, tousled woman, half-dressed, doing her housework, or trying to snatch an hour or two of sleep after her long night of work in the mill. ... The facts are there for any one to see; the hopeless and exhausted woman, her cluttered three or four rooms, the swarm ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... whole fashion of the landscape has been changed for him, as though the sun had just broken forth, or a great artist had only then completed, by some cunning touch, the composition of the picture? And not only a change of posture - a snatch of perfume, the sudden singing of a bird, the freshness of some pulse of air from an invisible sea, the light shadow of a travelling cloud, the merest nothing that sends a little shiver along the most infinitesimal ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... same time, I came to say that you must not count on M. Schmucke, worthy man, for he is going to sit up with him at night. One cannot help doing as if there was hope still left, and trying one's best to snatch the dear, good soul from death. But the doctor has ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... when they were not singing. It was seldom Marie had a holiday, and this was full of delight. Would she ever have a lover like Jacques Graumont, who would look at her with such adoring eyes and slyly snatch her hand when her mother was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... dull, Mr. Garland, in a moral and pathetic age, charged that the farmers were oppressed. His men wrestle fearfully with sod and mud and drought and blizzard, goaded by mortgages which may at almost any moment snatch away all that labor and parsimony have stored up. His women, endowed with no matter what initial hopes or charms, are sacrificed to overwork and deprivations and drag out maturity and old age on the weariest treadmill. The pressure of life is simply ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... although nigh dead with fatigue, she would be bestowing her attention on other men, wholly regardless of her slave. Now again he would scour the town, in scorching heat or drenching rain, frequently sacrificing the only moments he could snatch from business for his dinner, to procure a ribbon, a ring, or some dainty, which she desired, and which was difficult to obtain; and on his return she would receive him perhaps with coldness and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... remove their weapons, lest they should be instantly wanted, of which we were in constant dread. Being but few of us, I had to take my regular turn of watch with the rest, and have often been more in fear of our own men than of the Javans, so that I had often to snatch up a target when I heard them making any noise in their sleep, lest they might treat me as they did each other. So terrified were we on account of fire, that though, when we went to sleep after our watches were expired, our men often sounded their drum at our ears without awakening ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... fellow, ran down the board and away. They could not ask him in to lunch, because he was too large and stout to squeeze through the cracks, but he understood how it was, and knew that he could find food elsewhere. Now he ran to the Pig-pen to snatch a share of the breakfast which the farmer had just left there. He often did this as soon as the farmer went away, and the Pigs never troubled him. Perhaps that was because they knew that if they drove him away when he came alone, he would bring all his sisters and his cousins ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson

... of the bridge to look down at this Yang-tse village; in delicious imaginary fear she shrieked that she was dizzy with the height; and it was an extremely human satisfaction to have a strong male snatch her back to safety, instead of having a logical woman teacher or librarian sniff, "Well, if you're scared, why don't you get away from the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... if some of the gaiety and exuberance and fun got no less into his manner towards the people whose habit is to shield their eyes with the spectacles of convention. Beardsley had a keen sense of humour that helped him to snatch all the joy there is in the old, time-honoured, youthful game of getting on the nerves of established respectability. Naturally, so Robert Ross, his friend, has said of him, "he possessed what is called an artificial manner"; that is, his manner was called affected, as was his art, because ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... on commencing this letter, events show all that I owe to your highness's solicitude. Warned by you, aided by your advice, strong in the co-operation of your excellent and courageous Sir Walter, I have been able to snatch my father from certain death, and I am assured of the return of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain dignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan turned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand case on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch it and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood back against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in company with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan looked at the girl swiftly. At the same time ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... seated on the ground. She is in tears. Her friend Skip has left her. Her cake has gone too. Did Skip snatch it ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... with him on his morning visit, and the pleasure they gave and the gratitude with which they were received led him to snatch a moment on his way home to call upon the donor and thank her in person ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... Black Shadow walked apart, and as she walked she pondered ceaselessly as to how soon she might venture to snatch at some part at least of the power she ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... seeking a solution of this frightful problem, asking himself what was to be done.... He saw that this miserable Vinson was caught in the wheels of a terrible machine, from which it was almost impossible to snatch him into safety. Nevertheless, his conscience revolted at the idea that he should do nothing to avert this wretched lad's suicide. He must stop Vinson—he must certainly save him from himself at ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... chapels, all save one applied to a special devotion. It was in this clear recess, lampless and unapplied, that he stood longest—the length of time it took him fully to grasp the conception of gilding it with his bounty. He should snatch it from no other rites and associate it with nothing profane; he would simply take it as it should be given up to him and make it a masterpiece of splendour and a mountain of fire. Tended sacredly all the year, with the sanctifying church round it, it would always be ready ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James

... leave thee as my last bequest:— Never to win by arms thy native land, No, nor return to Argos in the Vale, But by a kinsman's hand to die and slay Him who expelled thee. So I pray and call On the ancestral gloom of Tartarus To snatch thee hence, on these dread goddesses I call, and Ares who incensed you both To mortal enmity. Go now proclaim What thou hast heard to the Cadmeians all, Thy staunch confederates—this the heritage that Oedipus ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... thy once harmonious shore Resounds th' inspiring strain no more, That snatch'd in fields of ancient date, The palm from number, strength, and fate; Since to thy grove no more belong The sacred eulogies of song; Since thou hast rued the waste of age, And war, and Scolan's fiercer rage;—{76} The ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... no more rob him of it than I'd snatch a life-buoy from a drowning man. Do you fancy, child, that the swimmer will always go about with the corks that ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... M'Queen and said to me, 'This is a critical man, sir. There must be great vigour of mind to make him cultivate learning so much in the isle of Sky, where he might do without it. It is wonderful how many of the new publications he has. There must be a snatch of every opportunity.' Mr M'Queen told me that his brother (who is the fourth generation of the family following each other as ministers of the parish of Snizort) and he joined together, and bought from time to time such books as had reputation. Soon after we came in, a black cock ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... a great many speeches, sometimes five or six in a day. He could have had no preparation but the few minutes which he could snatch while waiting for dinner at some house where he was a guest, or late at night, after a hard day's work. But his speeches were gems. They were beautiful in substance and in manner. He was ready for every occasion. When the speaker who welcomed him at Roxbury told him that Roxbury contained no historic ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... care to examine herself, through some reluctant sense of havoc, and a bitter fear that someone might be disappointed in her. Then at the last, when all was ready, she snatched up her lover's portrait (which for days had been cast aside and cold), and, laying it on her bosom, took a snatch of a glance ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... hand, and unwillingly change it for another. A confusion of meats and a clatter of dishes displease me as much as any other confusion: I am easily satisfied with few dishes: and am an enemy to the opinion of Favorinus, that in a feast they should snatch from you the meat you like, and set a plate of another sort before you; and that 'tis a pitiful supper, if you do not sate your guests with the rumps of various fowls, the beccafico only deserving to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... first moment of unalloyed pleasure I have felt since I came into my fortune, when I once more cast my eyes over the library and beheld it with all the pride of ownership. I involuntarily put forth my hand to snatch up one of the volumes, as if I thereby wished to signify I was taking possession. Van Beek smiled and twinkled his cunning little eyes; but the maid, who was standing by, looked at me as though I ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... pillows—the next, she would lift her head, hold her breath and listen if among the gush of bird-songs and the hum of insects she could hear the one sound that her heart was panting for. Then she would start up, and taking a tiny watch from her bosom snatch an impatient glance at the hands and thrust it back to its tremulous resting-place again. Alas for thee, Florence Hurst! All this emotion, this tremor of soul and body, this quick leaping of the blood in thy young heart and thrilling of thy delicate nerves, in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... the grand-stand Angela sat with Thorpe: the handsomest couple at the Fair. For the moment, at any rate, Angela was enjoying herself; Jim, on the other hand, looked miserable. Contrast had discoloured the good time. He couldn't snatch pleasure out of the present because he saw ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... replied after a moment's thought, "where I can lie down and sleep. I am dead beat, Lancey, for want of rest, and really feel unable for anything. If only I can snatch an hour or two, that will suffice. Meanwhile, you will go to the nearest station and find out if the railway has ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... The very tread of men As great as those is shattering to the frame Of such a little house. Once left alone, You and I, dear, will go with softer steps Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost

... impulse was to drive on and endeavor at all hazards to snatch the bonds from the flames. His next was to return and alarm his neighbors and obtain their assistance. But a minute's delay might be fatal: so he drove on, screaming, "Fire! fire!" at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... went back to my hotel, the old Brevoort, for a snatch of sleep; and at half-past eight I was out in the streets again. The first thing that caught my eye was a black-lettered proclamation—posted by German spies, no doubt—over Henri's barber shop, and signed by General von Hindenburg, announcing the capitulation of New York City. The ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... never listen, Call not outside my door. Green leaves, you must not glisten Like water, any more. Oh, Beauty, wandering Beauty, Pass by; speak not. For see, By bed and board stands Duty To snatch my ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... sympathize in the eagerness with which I snatch up the precious volume, the haste with which I count out the five and twenty francs, the delight with which I see the dealer's hand close on the sum, and know that the book is legally and indisputably ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... give to get a name, And snatch his blundering dialect from shame? What would he give to hand his memory down To time's remotest boundary? a crown! Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue— Futurity he rates at two ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... to enjoy fully the half-hour which he meant to snatch from duty, Sam entered a first-class carriage which stood on a siding, and, creeping under a seat, laid himself out at full length, pillowing his head on his arm. Tired men don't require feather-beds. He was sound ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... scruple of which I gave you a pertinent proof by not insisting any further on your choosing Weymar instead of Bieberich as your villegiatura during this last month,—yet duty (and a theatrical duty!) obliges me to snatch you from your Rhine-side leisure, to set yourself to work afresh at your business on the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... contrived to collect, rented a cellar in an obscure retired alley—provided themselves with musical instruments, and, with paper decorations and patchwork, formed a little theatre, whither they resorted, every moment they could snatch by stealth or pretext, from their parents' and masters' control, in order privately to practise music and dancing, to spout and to perform (in their way) plays, operas and farces. At this time the whole amount of the schooling ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... bound, no term is set. Whether you everywhere be trying, Or snatch a rapid bliss in flying, May it agree with you, what you get! Only fall to, and show no ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... already risen in the hitherto sunny skies of his life. He passed the examination with his usual success. The certificate was duly signed, and, happy that he could carry it down to his parents, he looked out the train to Penzance. Finding that he had an hour or so to spare, he went to an inn to snatch a meal before he started off on ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... His servants were all trained to silence, and in giving his orders the fewest words possible were used. His meals were served irregularly, whenever in the intervals of absorbing labors, he could snatch a fragment of time. He uniformly dined upon one kind of meat,—a joint of mutton; and he seemed to have no knowledge that there were other kinds in ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... "it is not abject. Sometimes in one's life comes a crisis, when one must snatch at some remedy, or else die, or go mad. If there is not then something in us that makes us believe in a future, we, of course, die; but I could never think it a cure myself, merely to be free of the body, because ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... strongly, in shapeless little Finn, and he straddled the foster's nose, so that his round stomach pressed on her nostrils. There he wriggled helplessly. Then a curious thing happened, while the Master leaned forward, prepared to snatch the pup from danger. The sheep-dog emitted a low, angry growl, which filled Finn with uncomprehending fear, and toppled him over on his fat back. But, even while she growled, maternity asserted its claim strongly in the kindly heart of this soft-eyed sheep-dog. Finn did not know in the least ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... flames on; Now he pulls up to snatch Some fodder. The stable's in danger. His whip is a torch, and each spur is a match, And over the horse's left eye is a patch, To keep ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

... eating. I've far too much to do. To tell you the truth, Major, I don't expect to sit down to a square meal until I join the Lord-Lieutenant's luncheon party. Till then I must snatch a crust as I can while running from one thing ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham

... have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waiter coming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to his everlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went about his work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehension that he would come to the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... of you galoots dares to fire before he gets the word," sounded Dave Fulsbee's warning voice in the ominous calm that followed, "I'll snatch the offender out of the line and give him a good, sound spanking. The only man for me is the man who has the nerve to wait when he's ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... are here,' answered the elder; 'and this is what you must do. This very night, fill a lamp full of oil, and cover it with a dark cloth, so that not a ray of light can be seen; then take a sharp knife and hide it in your bosom. After the serpent is sound asleep, steal softly across the room, and snatch the cloth from the lamp, so that you may see where to strike home, for if he should wake before you have cut off his head ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... and it was they who had flung aside those two comedians who hung upon Binet. After him they came now, their swords out; but after them again came Polichinelle, Rhodomont, Harlequin, Pierrot, Pasquariel, and Basque the artist, armed with such implements as they could hastily snatch up, and intent upon saving the man with whom they sympathized in spite of all, and in whom now all their hopes ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... moon refused to afford them light they kindled torches in order to find each other. It was therefore midnight before the exhausted combatants dropped down on the battle-field, pillowing their heads on their horses and elephants to snatch a brief rest so as to be able to renew the war of extermination ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... There are folk who use their families so. They live like parasites on the beautiful institution of family life, getting as much as possible for as little as possible. There are folk who use the nation so. To them their country is a gigantic grab-bag from which their greedy hands may snatch civic security and commercial gain. For such we have hard and bitter names. There is, however, one relationship—business—where we take for granted this very attitude which everywhere else we heartily condemn. Multitudes ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... murmuring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty, Some bold adventurers disdain 35 The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... to tempt the enemy from combat to covetousness. They ought cheerfully to spend on so extreme a need the spoil they had gotten among foreigners; for the enemy would drop it as eagerly, when it was once gathered, as they would snatch it when they first found it; for it would be to them ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's, and King's, reached this place after dark on a car from Parsonstown. The day was delightfully cool and bright. I had the carriage to myself almost all the way, and gave up all the time I could snatch from the constantly varying and often very beautiful scenery to reading a curious pamphlet which I picked up in Dublin entitled Pour I'Irlande. It purports to have been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. de Mandat Grancey's ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... attempted to snatch Chanden Sing's rifle out of his hand, received from him a battering they were not likely to forget. After this we were left alone for the remainder of the day. In the evening Chanden Sing fired at a black wolf which came close to camp. I discovered, about one ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... to the sides of his tub with both hands. Wad, intending to jump, plunged into the deepest part of the river. Link made a snatch at the barrel, and, playing at leap-frog over it (very unwillingly), went headlong into the ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... aprons; and for fear this, together with the noise of their clamorous begging, should not sufficiently frighten the horses, they are very apt to let the gate slap full against you, before you are half way through, in their eager scuffle to snatch from each other the halfpence which you may have thrown out to them. I know two ladies who were one day very near being killed by ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... and setting off at full gallop, followed by the bridegroom and other young men of the party, also on horseback; she is always to strive, by adroit turns, etc., to avoid her pursuers, that no one approach near enough to snatch from her the burden on her lap. This game, called koekbueri (green wolf), is in use among all the nomads of central Asia." (A. Vambery, Travels in Central ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... through all the ceremony of summoning the Archangel of the Law, but at the crucial moment of the invocation Rabbi Israel cried out, "We have made a slip. The Angel of Fire is coming instead. He will burn up the town. Run and tell the people to quit their dwellings and snatch ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... wo toran to suru ga gotoshi. Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon's reflection ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... watch the men who should have gone below were forced to take a two hours' spell at the pump; they then wrung their clothes, hung them up before the little fire in the forecastle, and turned in naked. Then, after a brief snatch of sleep, they jumped out, put on their steaming clothes, and went to the pumps once more. At 6 a.m. on the 14th the handspike was thumped on the deck, and a sailor said, "Turn out, boys; she's going down!" Worn out with want of rest, their ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... covered with a fur cap or band. Their manner is reserved and their habits are selfish; they beg with unceasing importunity for everything they see. I never saw men who either received or bestowed a gift with such bad grace; they almost snatch the thing from you in the one instance and throw it at you in the other. It could not be expected that such men should display in their tents the amiable hospitality which prevails generally amongst the Indians ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... is his mission to be bored every day and all day long from his eighth year. Moreover, he must not take a moment's rest; the engine moves unceasingly; the wheels, the straps, the spindles hum and rattle in his ears without a pause, and if he tries to snatch one instant, there is the overlooker at his back with the book of fines. This condemnation to be buried alive in the mill, to give constant attention to the tireless machine is felt as the keenest torture by the operatives, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... snowy road ahead, he saw a State Trooper on snow-shoes,—saw the upflung arm warning him—screamed curses at his horses, flogged them forward to crush this thing to death that dared menace him—this object that suddenly rose up out of nowhere to snatch from him ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... nothing of this at the time. He was sleeping too heavily. He had merely taken a moment to snatch a bit of food, and then, at the suggestion of his commanding officer, he had rolled himself in his blankets. Sleep came instantly, and it was not interrupted until Warner's hand fell upon his shoulder at dawn, and Warner's voice said ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Foster knelt by the side of the little cradle, her tears falling fast and thick on the small white arm of her sick baby; for very sick it was, and she feared that death (ay, not death, but God—her heart, her conscience said, "God,") was about to snatch from her the object she loved best on earth, even with a ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... obscure, undistinguished race, but for more than a thousand years we have been English gentlemen. Guard her secret rather than risk the chance of discovery that could give her a pang! I would pass my whole life by her side in Kamtchatka, and even there I would not snatch a glimpse of the secret itself with mine own eyes: it should be so closely muffled and wrapped round by the folds of reverence ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... behaviour, that he seldom remembered when any company entered the room in which he happened to be sitting, either to rise from his chair or take off his hat; and when he was told of it either by his parents or his master, he would bounce up, and snatch of his hat in such an awkward hurry, grinning and leering the whole time, that you would have thought he had just started from a dream; and even then he would generally forget to finish the rude ceremony by making one of his ducking bows. It is true, indeed, he had been under the hands ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... the stairs ahead of him, and had time to snatch the crocheted wrap from her father's shoulders. Swathed as usual, he was sitting beside a table, reading the evening paper; but when his employer appeared in the doorway he half rose as if to come forward ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... was stretched out now, although only for the saving of one little girl. It guided the boy to the spot where the poor little floundering bundle rose to the surface, helped him to play the hero, and to snatch her from those yawning watery jaws, that would fain have swallowed her—she was shudderingly near to her end, but after a time he grasped her tightly, and drew her ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield

... compassionate Saviour, and to tell Him what I cannot utter to any human ear. How strange it is that when, through many years of leisure and strength, prayer was only a task, it is now my chief solace if I can only snatch time for it. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... too quick, as you saw, and had me down before I could shut my fist. Why they did not despatch me then and there I know not; but in seizing me they carried their blades in their teeth, the better to use their hands, so that I was able to snatch one for my own use as I fell. It served only to rid me of one of the company. Yet I got my feet again under me, when the other two made at me, as well as the two who had fled from you. Among them ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... the mean fearlessly bound themselves by an oath to extirpate the Jews by fire and sword, and to snatch them from their protectors, of whom the number was so small that throughout all Germany but few places can be mentioned where these unfortunate people were not regarded as outlaws and martyred and burned. Solemn summonses were issued ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... saying, "See what Glazer has sent me." She asked him for one, but Sainte-Croix said he would rather die than give it up. He added that the archer Antoine Barbier had given him three letters written by the marquise to Theria; that in the first she had told him to come at once and snatch her from the hands of the soldiers; that in the second she said that the escort was only composed of eight persons, who could he worsted by five men; that in the third she said that if he could not save her from the men who were taking her away, he should ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... troubled one. Whippham had muddled his timetable and crowded his afternoon; the strike of the transport workers had begun, and the ugly noises they made at the tramway depot, where they were booing some one, penetrated into the palace. He had to snatch a meal between services, and the sense of hurry invaded his afternoon lectures to the candidates. He hated hurry in Ember week. His ideal was one of quiet serenity, of grave things said slowly, of still, kneeling figures, of a sort of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... no use," she whispered suddenly, dropping my hand and moving away as we heard the matron fumbling at the lock; and before I could utter a word of protest, before I could reach forward and snatch her from some dread thing, I knew not what, she had disappeared among the shadows of ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... 1884 and with Bismarck's help put the Free State on the map, with himself as steward. It was only a year ago in Germany that a former high-placed German statesman admitted to me that one of the few fundamental mistakes that the Iron Chancellor ever made was to permit Leopold to snatch the Congo from under the very eyes and hands of Germany. I quote this episode to show that when it came to business Leopold made every king in Europe look like an office boy. Even so masterful a manipulator of men as Cecil Rhodes failed with him. Rhodes sought his aid in his trans-African ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... To snatch two fragile victims from the foe Nine hundred men have traversed leagues of snow. Each woe they suffered in a hostile land The flame of vengeance in their bosoms fanned. They thirst for slaughter, and the signal wait To wrest the captives from their horrid fate. Each warrior's ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt whether it wouldn't be better to wrench his blunderbuss from him, fire it in the face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the company over the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and go off in the smoke. On second thoughts, however, he abandoned this plan, as being a shade too melodramatic in the execution, and followed the two mysterious men, who, keeping the lady between them, were now entering an old house in front of which the coach had stopped. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... she brought the plague. His servants were all trained to silence, and in giving his orders the fewest words possible were used. His meals were served irregularly, whenever in the intervals of absorbing labors, he could snatch a fragment of time. He uniformly dined upon one kind of meat,—a joint of mutton; and he seemed to have no knowledge that there were other ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... sounded, Jack and Ted, relieved from duty, went below to get some "chow" and snatch an ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... was only fair that she should bleat back. As he explained, for the future they would both be lovers all their life long; and no logical argument in reply could she think of. If she tried to write a letter, he would snatch away the paper her dear hands were pressing and fall to kissing it—and, of course, smearing it. When he wasn't giving her pins and needles by sitting on her feet he was balancing himself on the arm of her chair and occasionally falling over ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome

... hadn't told about that, nor why she asked for the "room to herself" that turned out to be a servants' garret on a deserted floor. You could wake at five o'clock in the light mornings and read Plato, or snatch twenty minutes from undressing before Miss Payne came for your candle. The tall sycamore swayed in the moonlight, tapping on the window pane; its shadow moved softly in the room ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... long—resided under a worktable in the tiny storeroom/greenhouse adjacent to our grade school science class. It was full of what looked like black, crumbly soil and zillions of small, red wiggly worms, not at all like the huge nightcrawlers I used to snatch from the lawn after dark to take fishing the next morning. Mr. Campbell's worms were fed used coffee grounds; the worms in turn were fed to salamanders, to Mr. Campbell's favorite fish, a fourteen-inch long ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... factory with enthusiasm, just as similar groups of Communists drafted into the armies in moments of extreme danger did, on more than one occasion, as the non-Communist Commander-in-Chief admits, turn a rout into a stand and snatch victory from what looked perilously like defeat. But this was not enough, arrears of work accumulated, enthusiasm waned, productivity decreased, and some new move was obviously necessary. This first move in the direction of industrial conscription, although no one perceived its tendency at the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... the bear reached the carcass. The two boys expected he would snatch it up instantly and run away, but they were mistaken. The bear sniffed it from end to end, and walked all ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... sufficed to raise the question arising out of that principle between Her Majesty's Embassy and the Porte, but had the man been arrested after his recantation, I should perhaps have been reduced to the necessity of putting all to hazard in order to snatch him from the hands ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various

... to do," he answered. "Life has thrown me back into the old position, and I must face the same foes again. I always rush too eagerly to snatch my good; I always hit my head against some impassable wall. I thought I had won my battles and was safe, ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... else—they saw a huge German officer emerge from a dugout just in rear of the ape-man. They saw him snatch up a discarded rifle with bayonet fixed and creep upon the apparently unconscious Tarzan. They ran forward, shouting warnings; but above the pandemonium of the trenches and the machine gun their voices could not reach him. The German leaped ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... hands, he crossed the room to snatch a bottle of whisky from its place beside the lamp on the bureau. With trembling eagerness, he poured a water tumbler half-full of the red liquor. As one dying of thirst, he drank. Drawing a deep breath, and shaking his head with a wry smile, he spoke in hoarse confidence ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... whether he walks, works, speaks or writes, opens his eyes to look, or closes them to shut out a scene, he acts by "motion." An act of the will may also be directed to the restriction of movement: to restrain the disorderly movements of anger; not to give way to the impulse which urges us to snatch a desirable object from the hand of another, are voluntary actions. Therefore the will is not a simple impulse towards movement, but the intelligent ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the rabbit, just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall and a crash of breaking glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll

... along like a basket of eggs between two men who exclaimed to her of the wonders of Times Square—explained them so quickly that the old lady, trying to be impartially interested, waved her head here and there like a piece of wind-worried old orange-peel. Anthony heard a snatch of their conversation: ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... groups in the adjoining windows, and Odo, with the acuteness of perception which a public life develops, was instantly aware that her name was on every lip. At the same moment he saw a woman close to his horse's feet snatch up her child and make the sign against the evil eye. A boy who stood staring open-mouthed at Fulvia caught the gesture and repeated it; a barefoot friar imitated the boy, and it seemed to Odo that the familiar sign was spreading with malignant ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys. Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarr'd the full fruition Of thy favors, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odors, that give life like glances from a neighbor's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy holders take delight, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... gunwale, and with his face almost touching the surface, and his hands playing in the water, was peering down into the lagoon, probably on the look-out for another turtle, when a large shark, coming as it seemed from beneath the boat, rose suddenly but quietly, and made a snatch at him. Johnny saw the monster barely in time; for just as he sprang up with a cry of affright, and fell backwards into the boat the shark's shovel-nose shot four feet above water at our stern, his jaws snapping together as he disappeared again, with a sound like the springing of a powerful ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... Lance's disappointing deficiency in schoolboy voracity became the cause of a lamentation over his brother's small appetite, and an examination of Robina, resulting in her allowing that Felix seldom gave himself time to do more than snatch a crust of bread in the middle of the day, and did not always make up for it at tea-time. Mr. Froggatt shook his head and looked distressed, and his good lady went on discoursing about the basin of soup she always used to keep prepared for him, evidently ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... better go ashore after the stuff," he said to Ichi. "Take a full boat's crew, and Blake, here—yes, be sure and take Blake with you. I'll remain aboard—snatch forty winks, if I can, for I'll get no rest tonight if we pull out of this hole. You may return ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... in opposition to the Duke. It is but justice to state that the learned jurisconsult manfully and repeatedly confronted the wrath of his superior in many a furious discussion in council upon the subject. He had never essayed to snatch one brand from the burning out of the vast holocaust of religious persecution, but he was roused at last by the threatened destruction of all the material interests of the land. He confronted the tyrant with courage, sustained perhaps by the knowledge that the proposed plan was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and could not rest; twenty times in the night he would awake with a start from a sleep haunted by nightmares. It was only in the blue chamber, in Elodie's arms, that he could snatch a few hours' slumber. He talked and cried out in his sleep and used often to awake her; but she could make nothing of ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... marshal. But as the American's healthy spirits, like cleansing by vigorous blood, swept the gloom from his mind, he began to wonder at the craving for bustle and forgetfulness which had made him snatch at such an offer. The corners of his mouth twisted in whimsical self-scorn. He, one of your drooping, unrequited lovers! "Shucks!" that is what he thought. And he persuaded himself that it was all over. Quite, quite persuaded himself. But as a matter of fact, he hoped that he might never ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... imperatively noticeable people there. I question whether there are half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence, at whom a stranger, wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,—a pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature, with a decided originality of gait and aspect, and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of the garrison no opportunity had hitherto been afforded the officers to snatch the slightest refreshment. Advantage was now taken of the short interval allowed by the governor, and they all repaired to the mess-room, where their breakfast had long ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... to be consumed on roof, or in back yard of stinking tenement, or on some fire-escape. The city, in fine, was relaxing from its toil; and, as the workers for the most part knew no other way, nor could afford any, they were trying to snatch some brief moment of respite from the Hell of their slavery, by recourse to ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... returned contentedly to the fields, and about this time found a new friend in the son of a small farmer named Turnill. The two youths read together, Turnill assisting Clare with books and writing materials. He now began to "snatch a fearful joy" by scribbling on scraps of paper his unpolished rhymes. "When he was fourteen or fifteen," to use his mother's own words, "he would show me a piece of paper, printed sometimes on one side and scrawled ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... central point of the whole national vanity. Those spectators who in reality had no access to the great world, were flattered by being surrounded on the stage with marquises and chevaliers, and while the poet satirized the fashionable follies, they endeavoured to snatch something of that privileged tone which was so much the object of envy. Society rubs off the salient angles of character; its only amusement consists in the pursuit of the ridiculous, and on the other hand it trains us in the faculty of being upon our guard against the observations ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... humming a snatch of something too choice for me to recognise when I drew in my head from the glorious night. The folding-doors were shut, and the grandfather's clock on one side of them made it almost midnight. Raffles ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... possession, animated by something of his Freya's soul, the only foothold of two lives on the wide earth, the security of his passion, the companion of adventure, the power to snatch the calm, adorable Freya to his breast, and carry her off to the end of the world; to see this beautiful thing embodying worthily his pride and his love, to see her captive at the end of a tow-rope was not indeed a pleasant experience. It had something nightmarish in it, as, for instance, the dream ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... they are in love! But no man in his senses ever thinks of printing them. Here one of the sorrows of life, in which there is real poetry, gave itself vent; not that barren grief which the poet may only hint at, but never depict in its detail—misery and want: that animal necessity, in short, to snatch at least at a fallen leaf of the bread-fruit tree, if not at the fruit itself. The higher the position in which one finds oneself transplanted, the greater is the suffering. Everyday necessity is the stagnant pool of life—no lovely picture reflects ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... prophet's glowing description of the return of the Captives, under the figure of a flock fed by a strong shepherd. We have often seen, I suppose, a flock of sheep driven along a road, some of them hastily trying to snatch a mouthful from the dusty grass by the wayside. Little can they get there; they have to wait until they reach some green pasture in which they can be folded. This flock shall 'feed in the ways'; as they go they will find nourishment. That is not all; the top of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... impulsive answer with a quick snatch at his elbow. He looked his questioner straight ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske

... and plot and live for. And he needs it. We all do. It's our human and natural hunger for companionship. And as he observed not long ago, if that hunger can't be satisfied at home, we wander off and snatch what we can on the wing. Some day when they're rich, I overheard Dinky-Dunk announcing the other night, Pauline Augusta and her Dad are going to make the Grand Tour of Europe. And there, undoubtedly, do their best to pick up a Prince of the Royal Blood and have a chateau ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... bowed. Hortense did not know with whom she should shake hands, with Madame d'Imbleval, the mother, or with Madame Vaurois, the mother. But what happened was that Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois both at the same time attempted to snatch the letter which Rnine was holding out to Jean Louis, while both at ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... then, his eyes sought the line of twisted hedge, and he saw it, looking so much the same, yet set with leaf and blossom so many seasons away from that August evening, even as he was himself from the child who had thought to arrest Time. Yet, realising that, he again tried to snatch at the present, though with the difference that now he told himself that anyway there was such a long, long time before him to be young in that ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... some exquisitely fine linen thread, with which she purposed to weave cambric delicate enough for kerchiefs and caps. As she spun, she sang as the birds sing, that is from the heart, and not from the score; and now it was a blithe chanson brought by her mother from her French home, and now it was a snatch of some Dutch folks-lied or some Flemish drinking-song, and again the rude melody of an old Huguenot hymn, the half devout, half defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands. But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous trill of a linnet's ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... Spachendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the morning of Rupert's Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow better. The ceremony is known as the "burying of Death."[298] Even ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... rushed, it banged against trees and drove him to greater speed until it was left behind on a branch. As for the hunter, he could only gaze wrathfully upon his wrecked camp and bemoan the fate which had twice brought to him the coveted game, only to snatch it away ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... with Cousin Maud; never had I been nearer to her heart. So long as she conceived that her comforting could little remedy my woe, she had left me to myself; and as soon as I was fain to use my hands again, and sing a snatch as I went up and down the house, meseemed her old love bloomed forth with double strength. Meseemed I could but show her my thankfulness, and my ear and heart were at all times open when she was moved to talk of her best-beloved Herdegen, and reveal ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... white dawn first Through the rough fir-planks 25 Of my hut, by the chestnuts, Up at the valley-head, Came breaking, Goddess! I sprang up, I threw round me My dappled fawn-skin; 30 Passing out, from the wet turf, Where they lay, by the hut door, I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, All drench'd in dew— Came swift down to join 35 The rout deg. early gather'd deg.36 In the town, round the temple, Iacchus' deg. white fane deg. ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry; Still, as they run, they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind And snatch ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... first in the bathroom, fit and young, Would, as he washed, refrain from giving tongue, Nor chant his challenge from the soapy deep, Inspired by triumph and renewed by sleep? Then how is this? Here have I waited long, Yet heard no crash of surf, no snatch of song. James, I am sad, forgetting to be cold; Does this decorum mean that we grow old? I knew you, James, as clamorous in your bath As porpoises that thresh the ocean-path; Oh! as you bathed when we were happy boys, You drowned the taps with inharmonious noise; Above the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various

... had really been reading a fashionable novel. As soon as I picked up my pen, he would leap upon the desk, and watch attentively the steel nib scribbling away on the paper, moving his head every time I began a new line. Sometimes he endeavoured to collaborate with me, and would snatch the pen out of my hand, no doubt with the intention of writing in his turn, for he was as aesthetic a cat as Hoffmann's Murr. Indeed, I strongly suspect that he was in the habit of inditing his memoirs, at night, in some gutter or another, by ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... be an agile chap, who is especially quick both at decisions and throwing. Even though he snatch up the ball, and thus make a fine stop, if his judgment is poor or his throwing arm lame, he can often bungle his work, and prove of ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... and rolled down-stairs, and lay at the bottom raving and growling in the most awful manner, and nothing could appease it. Sometimes the theme was caught by one part, and dangled for a moment, then with a snatch, another part took it and ran off exultant, until, unawares, the same trick was played on it; and, finally, all the parts, being greatly exercised in mind, began to chase each other promiscuously in and out, up and down, now separating and now rushing in full tilt together, until everything ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... darkly rise, And active vigour, that arrests their course, Or to a different aim diverts their force. He, in a happier land, by freedom bless'd, Had hallow'd virtue dawn'd upon his breast, Had done some glorious deed, to stamp his name High on the roll of ever-during fame; Snatch'd from Oppression's jaws some victim realm, Or fix'd in stable peace his country's wavering helm. But baleful Guilt usurp'd with fatal care A heart which Virtue had been proud to share; And turn'd to hateful dross the radiant ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... all were ready to attack. The French regulars—half-fed, sorely harassed, interfered with by Vaudreuil—were still the victors of Ticonderoga, against the British odds of four to one. Perhaps they might snatch one last desperate victory from the fortunes of war? Certainly all would follow wherever they were led by their beloved Montcalm, the greatest Frenchman of the whole New World. He said a few stirring words to each of his well-known regiments as he rode by; and when he laughingly asked the best ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood

... the laborer's proudly humble creed), Such ends as in his wisdom, fitliest chime With his vast love's eternal harmonies. There is no failure for the good and wise; What though thy seed should fall by the wayside, And the birds snatch it?—Yet the birds are fed; Or they may bear it far across the tide, To give rich ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... more in mirth than in mischief—our bark is worse than our bite—and, especially, we mean you no personal harm—wherefore, draw off while the play is good; for it is ill whistling for a hawk when she is once on the soar, and worse to snatch the quarry from the ban-dog—Let these fellows once begin their brawl, and it will be too much for madness itself, let alone the Abbot of Unreason, to bring them ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... her: his anxiety to get away from her, his refusal to let her believe in her own constancy of purpose, his moments of bewilderment and dismay. It needed nothing but this to add the touch of intolerable absurdity to the horror of the whole affair, and to snatch the last hope of ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... flew to that of the Queen. That the horrid object might not escape observation, the monsters had mounted upon each other's shoulders so as to lift the bleeding head quite up to the prison bars. The King came just in time to snatch Her Majesty from the, spot, and thus she was prevented from seeing it. He took her up in his arms and carried her to a distant part of the Temple, but the mob pursued her in her retreat, and howled the fatal truth even at her, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... living or dead when you read these words, you will know that I love you. Could I repeat that avowal a million times, in as many varied forms, I should find no better phrase to express the dream I have cherished since a happy fate permitted me to snatch you from death. So I simply say, 'I love you.' I will continue to love you whilst life lasts, and it is my dearest hope that in the life beyond the grave I may still be able to voice my love ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... gaunt, smoky building a touch as of a wild rose on a gray rock-heap—a touch of color and of melody. Joe, at noon, would purposely linger near the open doorway to get a glimpse of their bright faces and a snatch of their careless laughter. Some of the girls knew him and would nod to him on the street—their hearts went out to the tall, ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... this moment about my promise to hunt up Mrs. Legrand's address for you. Very likely you have also forgotten by this time our talk about her, and if so it will not matter. But it vexes me to fail in a promise, and, if possible, I will snatch a moment before we leave to send a note to the friend I spoke of, and ask her to look the woman up ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... crazy?" asked Mrs. Livingstone, catching him by the coat as he passed her, while Carrie attempted to snatch the ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... happened that the chief clerk was standing in the booth with his back turned to the main door, and did not see the colonel enter. And the latter, coming in with easy steps, as he always went everywhere, heard a snatch of the talk over the telephone ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... he began to think about this great possibility, the thought held him in its grip. In fact, it shut out all others. Through busy days and sleepless nights he turned it over and over. And often, while engaged in other duties, he would snatch his notebook from his pocket in order to outline the new instrument he had in mind and jot down the signs he would use in ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... us to Tandinskaya. This is the best stancia on the road, and we therefore seized the opportunity to make a good, substantial meal and snatch a few hours' sleep before proceeding to the next rest-house, which was nearly a hundred miles distant. At Tandinskaya we changed teams, successfully resenting the extortionate charges made by the postmaster. All the stancias on this road are leased by the Government to Yakute peasants, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... virtues that a representative of the Third Estate should possess (26, 83). He already shows his blubbering capacity and his disposition to regard himself as a victim: "They undertake making martyrs of the people's defenders. Had they the power to deprive me of the advantages they envy, could they snatch from me my soul and the consciousness of the benefits I ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... up, I light me a lamp an look on de floor an dere, side o' my bed was my dress, layin right over dat flaxseed, so's she could walk over on de dress, big as life. I snatch up de dress an throw it an de bed; den I go to sleep, an I ain ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... profession of faith, or rather of scepticism, Miss Felicia attempted to treat the subject broadly. She soared to mountain-tops of social and psychological astuteness; but only to make hasty return upon her gentler self, deny her strictures, and snatch at the skirts of vanishing ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... could endure. As the flashes of light struck out about the pillar and the ball of fire fell as if dropped from some creating hand she screamed, "O my God, what blasphemy is this that men have achieved. Can they snatch the fire from heaven and make ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... names, speaking a jargon which sounded to Tallente like another language. He stayed for a quarter of an hour and then took his leave. Of the newcomers, no one seemed to have an idea who he was, no one seemed to care in the least whether he remained or went, He was only able to snatch a word of farewell with Jane at the door. She shook her head at ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... temperaments, the resignation grows less passive. Examples are sown so broadcast throughout history that I might well pass on without citation. As it is, I snatch at the first that occurs to my mind. Madame Guyon, a frail creature physically, was yet of a happy native disposition. She went through many perils with admirable serenity of soul. After being sent to prison ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... that you and he would be happy, but because I wished to snatch my own soul from perdition. I think it is safe now—but oh, my God! it is like the souls of many other mortals—saved in spite of myself! Phyllis, you have been my salvation. You are a girl; you cannot ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... among us are granted to dwell certain men of more delicate intellectual fibre than their fellows—men whose minds have, as it were, filaments to intercept, apprehend, conduct, translate home to us stray messages between these two mysteries, as modern telegraphy has learnt to search out, snatch, gather home human messages astray over waste waters of ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... victorious sword. Still Panonia pines away, Vassal of a double sway: Still Thy servants groan in chains, Still the race which hates Thee reigns: Part the living from the dead: Join the members to the head: Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold; Let one kind shepherd ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... earth would open and snatch me from these horrors," cried Alizon. "My reason is forsaking me. Would I could kneel and pray for deliverance! But ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... been taken by the Paulistas, the Indians broke into the church where a Jesuit (Padre Salazar) was officiating, and interrupted him during the Mass with the most bitter insults. One of the Indians menaced him with a lance, another with an arrow, whilst a third tried to snatch the chalice from his hands. He escaped, and ran, holding the chalice, out into the woods, followed by two little Indian boys. Wandering about, he fell in with the other Jesuits, all like himself outcasts, without a church, and almost deserted ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... themselves that their mere glimpse of country life—their mere snatch at its midsummer beauty, the one free-drawn breath of their wearied spirit—is acquaintance with it. As well might one who had seen Rosalind, the most versatile of Shakspeare's heroines, only in her court-dress at her uncle the duke's ball, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... sweet mouth would droop, effacing the cluster of dimples that played about her lips, and the fair, childish face, usually so joyful, wore the mask of grief. For the first time in her life real happiness had come, not within her grasp, but within sight; and this combat might snatch ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... Brethren; but now all differences were laid aside, for all was nearly over now. One laid the cloth, and another the plates; a third brought water and a fourth said the simple grace. As the night wore on they lay down on tables and benches to snatch a few hours of that troubled sleep which gives no rest. At two they were all broad awake again, and again the sound of psalms and hymns was heard; and as the first gleams of light appeared each dressed himself as though for a wedding, and carefully turned down the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... with which the modern art of war is acquainted were employed by each of the two opponents to snatch victory from his adversary. The shells of the heavy guns were combined with the projectiles of the lighter armament and the machine-guns posted in the fighting-tops, so that in the real sense of the word it was a "hail of projectiles," which came ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... Perhaps it was because he always ate twice as much as any of his brothers and sisters. His mother found him harder to manage, too; and she had to push him along through the doorway, because he wanted to stop and snatch a ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey

... contributed a five-dollar bill to the offertory, he first rolled it up into a tiny, unrecognizable wad before dropping it into the alms-basin. The service over, Sir Robert and the eminent divine were made acquainted. The latter said he would call as soon as he could snatch a moment, and Sir Robert, his hands folded behind his back, holding his hat and gloves, made the rounds of the church, inspecting every bit of carving, frescoing, glass, and brass, and making the most intelligent criticisms upon what he saw to Miss Noel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... Strength; did Inchantments or Monsters detain her from me; I would venture thro' any Hazard to free her; But here, in the Arms of a feeble old Man, my Youth, my violent Love, my Trade in Arms, and all my vast Desire of Glory, avail me nothing. Imoinda is as irrecoverably lost to me, as if she were snatch'd by the cold Arms of Death: Oh! she is never to be retrieved. If I would wait tedious Years; till Fate should bow the old King to his Grave, even that would not leave me Imoinda free; but still that Custom that makes it so vile a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... once. Do not let your thoughts be weeks or days ahead of you and the task in hand. This would be imposing double duty upon the already strained physique. If the body is at one store, do not let the mind fly off to shop in half a dozen other stores to snatch "bargains" from the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... with such means as you found sufficient for existence, would have been despondent drudges, you yourself perhaps working in a sewing-room in bad air and for poor pay, but here you were the free-holders of nature. Never did I see you go about your simple duties—always with a bright look and a snatch of song—but I said to myself, 'She hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her'; and I say it still, though I am well aware that the smart young women of London shops and restaurants will not believe me. I dare say they would count themselves much better ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... spell-bound at first, needed no second bidding, and, forgetful of her disheveled dress, sprang forward, and with outstretched arms, bare to the shoulder, was about to snatch her child. The pirate, however, with his red eyes gleaming with unholy fire, threw his great arm around the lovely woman's waist, and with a hoarse, fiendish chuckle of triumph, attempted to draw her toward him. But, quick as lightning, two black, sinewy paws clutched him with such a steel-like ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... and the spears From my many waylayers, While might was, and my good day, Often did I snatch away; Now a hag, whose life outworn Wicked craft and ill hath borne, Meet for death lives long enow, Grettir's might ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... and then at Dion with an air of profound astonishment. The quail dropped from his hands, and he did not even snatch at them as he listened to the remarkable sounds which, he could not doubt, flowed from his Amazon. His brows came down over his fiery eyes, and he seemed to stand at gaze like an animal, half-fascinated and half-suspicious. The voice died away and was followed by a sound of pouring ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... one, were getting to their legs or leaving the camp for necessary purposes, while a suppressed din and murmur arose, caused by the grooms currying and combing their horses. This was the moment for Thrasybulus and his men to snatch up their arms and make a dash at the enemy's position. Some they felled on the spot; and routing the whole body, pursued them six or seven furlongs, killing one hundred and twenty hoplites and more. Of the cavalry, Nicostratus, "the beautiful," as men called him, and two others besides were slain; ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... it was; for yesterday Thraso met Phillis with her posies, And thus began th' ungentle fray, 'Miss, I must execute those roses.' Then made, but fruitless made, a snatch, Repuls'd ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... "It is strange; you will scarce credit me, sir, when I tell you that when I'm near a magistrate, and particularly when he's fat, and the moon's low over the hills, why, my pistols leap from my belt of their own accord, and I must snatch them with both hands lest they go flying off like rockets and explode to do a harm to that same ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... well done," said Miss Ruth, "and I hope the cruel fellow profited by the lesson you gave him. I don't think I'm naturally vindictive, but when I see a man beating a horse I find myself wishing I was strong enough to snatch the whip from him and lay it well about his own shoulders. But come, boys, the fire is down to coals—just right for popping corn. Sammy, you know the way to the kitchen. Ask Lovina for the corn-popper and a dish, and, Roy, you'll find a paper bag full of corn in the cupboard yonder. Quick, now, ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... principally on one foot, but with a swiftness that surprised both of them. Overtaking her near the barnyard gate, he pulled up suddenly, realizing the peril of being too precipitate. He was rushing into disaster. She was likely to turn and snatch the offensive away from him. But just as he was on the point of turning to run the other way, she flopped down on her knees and began begging him for God's sake to spare her! Her eyes were tightly closed, and her arms were raised to ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... that it is illegitimately arrived at. The formal fallacies which have just been enumerated find no place in Aristotle's division. The reason is plain. His object was to enumerate the various modes in which a sophist might snatch an apparent victory, whereas by openly violating any of the laws of syllogism a disputant would ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... give utterance, except under the stimulus of delirium. The count writhed and shrank beneath the fierce stabbing of those incisive words, and, in his ungovernable grief, flung himself beside the son, whom he feared death would shortly snatch from his arms, pouring forth assurances Maurice would once have hailed as words of life, but which now fell powerless upon his unheeding ears. While Count Tristan's overwhelming anguish lasted, there was no promise he would not have made to purchase his son's restoration, and no promise ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... melancholy so conspicuous in her countenance, and her heart bled at the reflection, that perhaps deprived of honour, friends, all that was valuable in life, she was doomed to linger out a wretched existence in a strange land, and sink broken-hearted into an untimely grave. "Would to heaven I could snatch her from so hard a fate," said she; "but the merciless world has barred the doors of compassion against a poor weak girl, who, perhaps, had she one kind friend to raise and reassure her, would gladly return to peace and virtue; ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... "I never snatch any food when Mrs. Green's back is turned," he told Miss Kitty Cat severely. "She feeds me all she thinks I ought to eat. And if I want more, I hunt for it in the woods ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey

... vision rose before him. He saw her lying stiff and cold, with glazed eyes and drenched hair. Was there to be a yet more terrible separation between them? Was death to snatch her from him? Ah, no that should never be! They would at ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... stay with us long, as I've said, and so I'm not going to build you into the line, Gilbert. I've got some good-looking guard material and I can't afford to work over you and get dependent on you and then have Robey snatch you away about the middle of the fall. That won't do. But I'll tell you what we will do, Gilbert. We'll use you enough to bring you around in form slowly. You'll play left guard for awhile every day. But what I want ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... was still his. Just so, I see better than any other, that all I write here are but the idle reveries of a man that has only nibbled upon the outward crust of sciences in his nonage, and only retained a general and formless image of them; who has got a little snatch of everything and nothing of the whole, 'a la Francoise'. For I know, in general, that there is such a thing as physic, as jurisprudence: four parts in mathematics, and, roughly, what all these aim and point at; and, peradventure, I yet know farther, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... looks, how laughably old, How solemnly quiet among death preparations! Come, friends, help him to find himself before he reaches home. Change his pilgrim's robe into the dress of the singing youth, Snatch away his bag of dead things And confound ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... be here for another two hours, and it is as well that you should begin to make yourselves useful at once. We shall all have to be upon our mettle, too. See how nicely the boys have cooked the breakfast. These snatch-cock ducks are excellent, and the mutton chops done to a turn. They will have a great laugh at us, if we, the professed cooks, do not do ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... rapid advance will produce sellers and vice versa. A further element in the market, is the "jobber", whose main object is to take advantage of the small fluctuation caused by chance, but we must not forget the big speculators. By these, we do not mean those despicable people who aim to snatch a profit, and who, on having to face a loss, plead the gaming act. Experience and force of circumstances have, luckily, driven these parasites almost out of the market. But we do mean those big operators, who having weighed carefully ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer

... Everything looked alike, and different from anything she had ever seen before. She must certainly get on that pony's back, for her fear of the desert became constantly greater. It was almost as if it would snatch her away in a moment more if she stayed there longer, and carry her into vaster realms of space where her soul would be lost in infinitude. She had never been possessed by any such feeling before ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... raiment, fairies and elves. Without these ugly figures, folk-tales would soon lose their power to charm. All tale tellers know that fear is a potent spell. The curiosity which drove Bluebeard's wife to explore the hidden chamber lures us on to know the worst, and as we listen to horrid stories, we snatch a fearful joy. Human nature desires not only to be amused and entertained, but moved to pity and fear. All can sympathise with the youth, who could not shudder and who would ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... who should cherish it to its maturity, can be effected only through the medium of commerce. But it should be attempted not only with energy and decision, but with dispatch, before the enterprising and commercial spirit of a foreign power (seeing how abortive our efforts have been), shall snatch from us the glorious opportunity now offered of laying open the interior regions of Africa to the commercial ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... disorders and mishaps, springing from various complications of causes, working some of them in a more open and discernible, others in a more secret and subtle way (especially from Divine judgment and providence checking or chastising sin): from such occurrences it is common to snatch occasion and matter of calumny. Those who are disposed this way, are ready peremptorily to charge them upon whomsoever they dislike or dissent from, although without any apparent cause, or upon ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... marriage. She said this over and over again to herself, as she walked up the steep street, where crowds of people were swarming at the end of their day's work. No! no! Maria did not care for Amedee. Louise was very sure of it; but at all events it was necessary that she should try to snatch her young sister from the discouragements and bad counsel of poverty. Amedee loved her and would know how to make her love him. In order to assure their happiness these two young people must be united. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... mob. I was in the act of crossing the frontier into my normal self again, when it came, catching fearfully at my skirts. I might use an entire dictionary of descriptive adjectives yet come no nearer to it than this—the conception of a huge assemblage determined to escape with me, or to snatch me back among themselves. My legs trembled for an instant, and I caught my breath—then turned and ran as fast as possible up the ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood

... she, "it may happen to you, as it has to me, that the iron-hearted King Pluto will take a liking to your darlings, and snatch them up in his chariot, ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... which it has been appointed you to bear for a time. There is temptation in the love you feel for those around you; it makes you cling to life; you are tempted to grieve if you lose them, whereas death is the greatest blessing in the gift of God. And just because it is so, we must not snatch at it before our time; it would be a sin to kill ourselves, since that would be to escape from the tasks set us. Many pleasures would seem to be innocent, but even these it is better to renounce, since ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... a-weeping and lamenting, as if he had been really and sorely afflicted. Mercury appeared as before, and, diving, brought him up a golden hatchet, asking if that was the one he had lost. Transported at the precious metal, he answered "Yes," and went to snatch it greedily. But the god, detesting his abominable impudence, not only refused to give him that, but would not so much as let him have ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... The remainder of the occupants of his traverse either sit on the fire step, with bayonets fixed, ready for any emergency, or if lucky, and a dugout happens to be in the near vicinity of the traverse, and if the night is quiet, they are permitted to go to same and try and snatch a few winks of sleep. Little sleeping is done; generally the men sit around, smoking fags and seeing who can tell the biggest lie. Some of them perhaps, with their feet in water, would write home sympathizing ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... One of the things that could defeat us is fear—fear of the task we face, fear of adjusting to it, fear that breeds more fear, sapping our faith, corroding our liberties, turning citizen against citizen, ally against ally. Fear could snatch away the very values we are striving ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... Nevertheless the room, the sunlight, the white dresses, the long shining table, the coloured silks and ribbons, swam in confusion around her. She was suddenly miserable. Her hands shook and her upper lip trembled. She had a strange illogical desire to go out and find Miss Daubeney and snatch her blue parasol from her startled hands and stamp ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... "taming the beast" was customary in Rome, and even in Egypt four thousand years ago; and lastly, because despots, kings, and emperors have always employed the ruse of throwing a scrap of food to the people to gain time to snatch up the whip—it is natural that "practical" men should extol this method of perpetuating the wage system. What need to rack our brains when we have the time-honoured method of the Pharaohs at ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... a moment," cried the boy, breaking into a snatch of opera music as if haunted by some melody; "but pray send Tim out a glass of wine, or he will freeze on the box this ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... deeply interested in a girl's religion, have come to see its relation to every other phase of her life, and to know that one may not snatch amusements from the lives of young people, ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery

... good straight lane—off with you and do your best, and no turning or stopping, mind, for the moon is very bright, and I am a pretty good shot." Hardly waiting to hear me out, the fellow set off up the lane, running like the wind; whereupon, I (waiting only to snatch up his forgotten bread and meat) took to my heels—down the lane, so that, when I presently stopped to don the smock-frock, its late possessor had vanished as though he had ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... wicked fellow," she said with a snatch of the breath. "A real downright wicked fellow, like Marr. That's what ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... carcass of a lamb or goat, and setting off at full gallop, followed by the bridegroom and other young men of the party, also on horseback; she is always to strive, by adroit turns, etc., to avoid her pursuers, that no one approach near enough to snatch from her the burden on her lap. This game, called koekbueri (green wolf), is in use among all the nomads of central Asia." (A. Vambery, Travels in Central ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Perhaps, enamour'd of resembling virtue, With gentle hand, restrain'd the streams of life, And snatch'd her timely from her ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... Mr. Chamberlain warned his fellow-countrymen "against the efforts which would be made by the politicians to snatch from them the fruits of a victory which would be won by their soldiers; and in particular against the campaign of misrepresentation which had been commenced already by Mr. Paul, the Stop-the-War Committee, and the other bodies which were so lavish with what they ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... these wild marauders with the wild names that never appear again in the history. Down on the rich valleys and peaceful pasture lands they swoop for booty, not for conquest. Like some sea-bird, they snatch their prey and away. They carry with them among the long train of captives Abram's ungenerous brother-in-law, Lot. Then the friend of God, the father of the faithful, musters his men, like an Arab sheikh as he was, and swiftly follows the track of the marauders over the hills of Samaria, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... the village student at the very sight of the venerable volumes. The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however, in reality by no means large; but it comprised not only the ordinary standard works, but several curious and rare ones. And Leonard paused in making the catalogue, and took many a hasty snatch of the contents of each tome, as it passed through his hands. The bookseller, who was an enthusiast for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling (which his shop-boy had never exhibited) in his new assistant; and he talked about rare editions and scarce copies, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... held her to him a little while, only over-quickly to be obliged to yield her to another. And now, after a third period of waiting, the time came for their last dance. He went for it as soon as the number preceding was over; he wanted, not only to miss none of it, but he hungered to snatch all the prelude he could. The conventional-looking young personage she had been dancing with regarded the approaching Mr. Heatherbloom rather resentfully, but he moved straight as an arrow for her. At ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... was a tremendous strain upon the man's chest, while, by a dexterous snatch, Small jerked one of the clinging hands free and thrust Jimpny off the shroud, making him swing round in the air, and this helped to jerk the other ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... the window and unhooks his fiddle; he stands with it halfway to his shoulder. Suddenly he opens the window and leans out. A confused murmur of voices is heard; and a snatch of the Marseillaise, sung by a girl. Then the shuffling tramp of feet, and figures are ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... my think-bank. There was a howlin' nor'wester comin' down. She'd been blowin' plenty fresh for a couple o' weeks, but instead o' letting up, the sea kep' on gettin' more wicked. The way some o' the big ones would come dashin' in an' shinnin' up the rock as if they were a-goin' to snatch the buildin' down, was sure wearin' on the nerves. That winter, there was more'n once I thought the sea was goin' to nip off the lighthouse like a ball takin' off the last pin ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... all flesh: or my memory fails me with age. In Exodus God commanded that the cattle should share the sweet blessing of the one day's rest. Moreover He 'forbade to muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. 'Nay, let the poor overwrought soul snatch a mouthful as he goes his toilsome round: the bulk of the grain shall still be for man.' Ye will object perchance that St. Paul, commenting this, saith rudely, 'Doth God care for oxen?' Verily, had I been Peter, instead of the humblest of his successors, I had answered him. 'Drop thy ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... Bayes says, was the new way of writing, Seneca is, with good reason, ranked in the class of ingenious, but affected authors. Menage says, if all the books in the world were in the fire, there is not one, whom he would so eagerly snatch from the flames as Plutarch. That author never tires him; he reads him often, and always finds new beauties. He cannot say the same of Seneca; not but there are admirable passages in his works, but when brought to the test they ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... Thus do the spirits of evil snatch their prey Almost out of the very hand of God; And day by day their power is more and more, And men and women leave old paths, for pride Comes knocking with thin knuckles on ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... characteristically treated his mental processes in a joking way, and wrote to a friend: "I like nine tenths of any matter I study, but I do not like to lick the plate. If I did, I suppose I should be more of a man of science and find my brain tired oftener than I do." Again he wrote, "my nature is to snatch at all the fruits of knowledge and take a good bite out of the sunny side—after that let in the pigs." Despite these statements, Holmes worked steadily every year at his medical lectures. He was very particular about the exactness ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... still remembers the all-powerful ring which he has given to the giants, and which is still in the keeping of Fafnir. In case this ring again falls into the hands of the revengeful Alberich, he knows the gods cannot hope to escape from his wrath. He himself cannot snatch back a gift once given, so he decides to beget a son, who will unconsciously be his emissary, and who will, moreover, oppose the offspring which Erda has predicted that Alberich will raise merely to help him avenge his wrongs. Disguised as a mortal ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... over to see how they were getting along, and allowed upon her return that she had serious fears the children would pull her in pieces. In spite of their mother's feeble attempts at authority, the little girls pulled at the ribbons on her cap, picked at her cuff-buttons, and one of them made a sudden snatch at her brooch, my cherished gift; the mother ran to the rescue, but not till the pin attached to the brooch was first bent, then broken. "What shall I do with these children," said the mother. Provoked by the injury ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell

... in arms charged down the street, blocking the station entrances, shouting, beating rattles and tins for drums, making the most deafening noise. Must we go on past or through them all? Yes, and it was for me a necessary lesson, perhaps, for trying to snatch too much for myself by getting away—and forgetting. I had wanted to shirk, now I was forced back ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... public papers, by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I hear she must be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses, I eat and drink and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor father ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold

... dear little woman, whom I had an immediate impulse, Perseus-like, to snatch from the jaws of her monster, and turning to the other lady of the party of four,—"but Mrs. —— has never been, and she cannot well go without a chaperone. Surely it cannot matter for once. It isn't as if ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... I thought you were dead," said one, on being remonstrated with by a dying man. And he went on his way reluctantly, for he knew that in a few minutes another would snatch the booty. But for the most part they were ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... one who should be judged by another law. Their sins, amongst which he included all their most cherished inherited customs, appalled him, as he continually proclaimed from the housetops. Moreover, when occasionally he did snatch a brand from the burning, and the said brand subsequently proved that it was still alight, or worse still, replaced its original failings by those of the white man, such as drink, theft and lying, whereof before it had been innocent, he would openly condemn it to eternal punishment. Further, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... as I came running down swiftly—for I was dread afraid Dame Elizabeth should overtake me and snatch back the money—and I might have spared my fears, for had I harried the Queen's crown along with her crowns, no such a thing should ever have come in her head—"O Hilda!" saith the child, "see here the good Messire who gave us the denier ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... will become so enfeebled, that they may be wrested from her? That having once obtained them by conquest, she will easily retain them at a peace? France wishes to establish herself, in the place of Britain, the dominant power of Europe; to this end, she sees that it is necessary to snatch the trident from the hand of Britain, and to wield it herself. To effect this, she knows well, that America must be supported in her independence. But is the time yet come, when she can reasonably hope, that both the mediators are prepared ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... amalgamation. To get the best results a great deal of care should be bestowed upon the mixture of this human salad. Guests should be seated in such a way that neighbors at table will interest each other; a brilliant guest should be placed where he may at least snatch crumbs of intellectual comfort if his near companions, tho talkative, are not conversationalists of the highest order; the loquacious guest should be put next to the usually taciturn, provided he is one who can be ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... fellow dropped back, however, his companion coming up behind him was in time to snatch the rifle, turning ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... beat upon Keola, and the room glowed with the burning: and next the smoke rose and made his head swim and his eyes darken, and the sound of Kalamake muttering ran in his ears. And suddenly, to the mat on which they were standing came a snatch or twitch, that seemed to be more swift than lightning. In the same wink the room was gone and the house, the breath all beaten from Keola's body. Volumes of light rolled upon his eyes and head, and he found himself transported to a beach of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... this road to-morrow, and let you welcome him; settle down a wooden chair in the middle of the house; snatch the hat from him, and do not give him any ease until you get back the beautiful comb that was high on ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... "There's a bloomin' bun-snatch somewhere, you fellers, don't it?". Though a Professor and one of the most keen and earnest workmen in India, his own college blazers were not quite worn out, and Life, the great Artist, had not yet done much sketching on the canvas of his face—in spite of his daily contact with the Science Professor, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... this, the father assumed an air of such fearlessness and calm authority, that the young lawyer, surprised and overawed, forbore, as he had intended, to snatch the letter from his hand, and confined himself to bitter complaints of the impropriety of his conduct, and of the light in which he himself must be placed to Redgauntlet should he present him a letter with a ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... in which, before I ran away, he had been forced to confess that I was very well able to cope with him. Now, therefore, in my extremity, seeing death so near at hand—for up to this moment I had hardly believed that my cousin would kill me—I made shift to snatch at an oar, and drawing it to me just in time put myself in a posture of defence before ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... occur in a certain determinate order; that each contains fossils peculiar to itself; and that they run diagonally across the kingdom in nearly parallel lines from north-east to south-west. And, devoting every hour which he could snatch from his professional labors to the work, in about a quarter of a century, or rather more, he completed his great stratigraphical map of England. But, though a truly Herculean achievement, regarded as that of a single man unindebted to public ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... receptivity. Poetry is not science, any more than painting is photography, or architecture is building in squares and cubes and circles. To approach the great poetry of "high seriousness" when we are in a cynical or flippant mood; to snatch glances at a great drama or epic when we are in a hurry; to begin from the very first line by examining with a cold-blooded criticism a passionate elegy or fiery lyric, is to act as if one sat at a concert of unfamiliar music only to criticise ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... possible, more true than horrible. Yes, sure as the day of doom, when that fearful day shall come, and lord Cornwallis, stript of his "brief authority", shall stand, a trembling ghost before that equal bar: then shall the evil spirit, from the black budget of his crimes, snatch the following bloody order, and grinning an insulting smile, flash it before his lordship's ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... cultivates his favour by obedience and respect. But our misfortune has been a great deal worse: we have suffered for some years under the oppression, the avarice and insolence of those, for whom the Qu[ee]n had neither esteem nor friendship; who rather seemed to snatch their own dues, than receive the favour of their sovereign, and were so far from returning respect, that they forgot common good manners. They imposed on their prince, by urging the necessity of affairs ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... you?" cried Larry, almost as much worked up as his smaller companion. "This time there's going to be something doing! I bet you Frank wants to just snatch a floating piece of wood off the water as he skims along, just like them Wild West riders do on horseback, when they throw their hats down. Why! Something must a-busted—they dropped splash on the lake; and look at the old biplane sitting right there like a great ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... have taken judgment in your hands and judged falsely withal; but ye shall be judged in truth, yea, even according to your measure. Repent, repent, for Death cometh swiftly and maketh no long tarrying. It shall come; it shall snatch men's souls away, even as ye have torn away my mother's soul, leaving no ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... yard when they rode up to the gate next morning. Dressed in a white sweater and a short skirt, and holding biscuits for a handsome collie to snatch from her hand, she made a charming picture of young and vigorous life. Her slim body was as strong and supple as the dog's, and her face glowed like a child's. Haney, sitting on the porch, was watching ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... basket of eggs between two men who exclaimed to her of the wonders of Times Square—explained them so quickly that the old lady, trying to be impartially interested, waved her head here and there like a piece of wind-worried old orange-peel. Anthony heard a snatch of their conversation: ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... to be offered up at the rising of the sun. How could I save them, I wondered. My power was gone. The women could not be moved from their work of vengeance; they were mad with their sufferings. As well might a man try to snatch her prey from a puma robbed of her whelps, as to turn them from their purpose. With the men it was otherwise, however. Some of them mingled in the orgie indeed, but more stood aloof watching with a fearful joy the spectacle in which ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... license answer to the full Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule. Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, May boldly deviate from the common track; From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which without passing through the judgment, gains The heart, and all its end at once attains. In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes, Which out of nature's common order rise, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... plain; Not slain as warriors by warriors in fight, By the arrows of Heaven slain. We have sinn'd: we lift up our souls to Thee, O Lord God eternal on high: Thou who gavest Thyself to die, Saviour, save! to Thy feet we flee:— Snatch from the hell and the Enemy's breath, From the Prince of the Air, from the terror by night that cometh:— From the Black Death, Christ save us! ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... marches, a few of the heedless youth occasionally lagged behind to snatch a handful of berries; sometimes a matron halted for a while to nurse her baby, and, not to lose time, dressed its hair while it took its meal. Now and then a young lady, excited by jealousy or some sneering look or word, made an ugly mouth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... of "carrying out Death." We have seen that at Spachendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the morning of Rupert's Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow better. The ceremony is known as the "burying of Death."[298] ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... few seconds Richard was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch at ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... of working with the theodolite and plane-table. We managed to get a base-line measured, 1,000 metres long, and to lay out the greater part of the east side of the bay, as well as the most prominent points round the camp; but one had positively to snatch one's opportunities by stealth, and every excursion ended regularly in bringing the instruments home ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... Parrett's! Tipper, in whom their forlorn hopes rested, was run out during his first over, while attempting to snatch a bye! ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... his second turn with the same equanimity as if his own master were on his back. He galloped handsomely towards the goose; there was a quick snatch and a snap, and the old man turned short and came back, ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... without arms, but also almost without wounds, keeping six enemies at bay, and with ten corpses at his feet for a rampart. When the fight began again, Monsoreau commenced to draw away the bodies, lest Bussy should snatch a sword from one of them. Bussy was surrounded; the blade of his sword bent and shook in his hand, and fatigue began to render his arm heavy, when suddenly, one of the bodies raising itself, pushed a rapier into his hand. It was ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... man! You've time enough to wait. It's not such a case as mine: without the Italian campaign, which gave me a chance to snatch the baton, they would have slit my ear like a condemned horse, under the empty pretext that I was sixty-five years old. You're not yet twenty-five, and you're on the point of becoming a brigadier: the Emperor promised it to you before me. In four or five years from ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... early age of thirteen. But it is not till Gasca's time that we find his name enrolled among the actors in the busy scenes of civil strife, when he accompanied the president in his campaign against Gonzalo Pizarro. His Chronicle, or, at least, the notes for it, was compiled in such leisure as he could snatch from his more stirring avocations; and after ten years from the time he undertook it, the First Part - all we have - was completed in 1550, when the author had reached only the age of thirty-two. It appeared at Seville in 1553, and the following ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... callous, ruthless Bounder, all smiles and sneers, strike Nora and snatch her jewels. He also saw the beautiful, high-strung and high-spirited creature, her senses drowned in resentment, snatch up a weapon and rush after him, all the wrong she had ever suffered at his hands flaming up in ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... highways seems to have been attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison in 1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in Pennsylvania, for here also originated ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... he felt bitterly bereaved. "How ironic life is," he thought. Then a snatch of French chatter and a gay laugh reached him. The gangway lifted, water widened between the bulwarks and the dock. As the ship swung out he caught the sea breeze—a flight of ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... the rich to take advantage of the necessity of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his neighbor's mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile units, and finally involves capitalists and laborers in one ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... implored, "speak, for I know you hear me. Are you a devil, Silencieux; a devil I have worshipped all this time? God help me! Have you no pity,—what is her little flower-life to you? Why should you snatch ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... time between squeezing the steaks, turning the corn cakes, kicking the dogs and administering various cuffs to sundry little black urchins, who were on the lookout to snatch a bit of the "hoe cake" whenever they could elude the argus eyes of Aunt Esther. When the rattling of the stage was heard, there ensued a general scrambling to ascertain which would be first to see who had come. At length, by a series of somersaults, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... it no longer, and so rushed away in a great state of agitation to tell her husband and ask him to help her against her enemy. But Tommy took the lady's side, and his young wife hated him for it, and was in despair and ready to snatch up her child and run away from them all, when all at once a carriage appeared at the cottage, and the great lady herself, followed by a nurse with the sickly baby in her arms, came in. She had come, she said very gently, ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... bronzing sunshine Thousands of good fellows, Such as roll the world along, Such as Cricket mellows! These shall keep the Motherland Safe amid her quarrels, Lucky lads, plucky lads, Trained to snatch at laurels! ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... his parents and the rest of his ancestors had departed, rather than anywhere else. Then I responded that he had better just try the force of fire; but he, with hands as hard as his heart, did not hesitate to snatch up some burning coals from the hearth. However, a few days later, his mind divinely changed, he ran out into the fields and meadows, and, calling all his tribesmen together, he urged them to accept the Christian sacraments, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... dearer. I was so thankful to see dear Ernest's faith triumphing over his heart, and making him so ready to give up even this little lamb without a word. Yes, we will give our children to Him if he asks for them. He shall never have to snatch them from us ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... undisclosing Night; And none is left to tell of the clear eyes That filled them with God's grace, And turned the iron skies to skies of gold! None; but the sweetest She herself grows old— Grows old, and dies; And, but for such a lovely snatch of hair As this, none—none could guess, or know That She was kind and fair, And he had nights and days beyond compare— How many dusty ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley

... are divided into two equal parties, each having a captain. Each party takes its place in one of the goals. The object of the game is for one of the runners to snatch the club and return to his goal before a runner from the opposite goal tags him, both leaving their starting bases at the same time on a signal. The players on each team run in turn, the captains naming who shall run ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... gone crazy in de head. He says, I better give him his turkey before he beat my head off. I tole him I wasn't gointer give nobody but Daisy Blunt dat turkey. Otherwise, if he wanted to try my head, I wasn't runnin uh damn step. Come on. So he jumped on me and tried to snatch de turkey. We fit all over de place. First we was just tusslin for de bird, but when he found out he couldn't take it he hit me wid his fist. Den I ups wid my African soup bone and I bet I plowed up uh acre uh bushes wid his head. He hit ker-bam! ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston

... Government of Louis Philippe. Under these circumstances it was of little avail to the Viceroy that his army stood on Turkish soil without a foe before it, and that the Sultan's fleet lay within his own harbour of Alexandria. The intrigues by which he hoped to snatch a hasty peace from the inexperience of the young Sultan failed, and he learnt in October that no arrangement which he might make with the Porte without the concurrence of the Powers would be recognised ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... from Dodo, who has dropped half of hers and seen it incontinently snapped up and gorged by Robin. Of course the shriek ends in a choking cough, as her mouth is full, and Mr. Dalton has to snatch her up and turn her face downwards, while Joyce paddles her little back till the morsel is ejected. When they have all got their breaths again—the dog meanwhile having sneaked a whole cake from the plate and fled to a safe distance—they subside into a restful silence for a ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... thee; Thy passion thou wouldst fain indulge, Lawless and forbidden though it be. I call upon thee, stop in time, Tear this folly from thy heart. If thy passion is immense, Still let honour hold its place. You reel, you stagger on the brink I'd snatch thee from the very edge. Thou knowest well it cannot be, The Inca never would consent. If thou didst e'en propose it now, He would be overcome with rage; From favoured prince and trusted chief, Thou wouldst ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham

... of his former attacks, that the new pupil was a person who might be insulted with impunity, and actuated by that general desire of retaliation, which is the certain effect bullying produces upon a mean disposition, Mullins proceeded, con amore, to fulfil Lawless's injunction. With a sudden snatch he withdrew the centre chair, on which Oaklands' legs mainly rested, so violently as nearly to throw them to the ground, a catastrophe which was finally consummated by Lawless giving the other chair a push with his foot, so that it was only by great exertion ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... theory, Solomon, that I shall be handsomely supported by my new friends. They'll snatch at the opportunity." ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... stone man. Then she saw how his giant arms were stretched towards the rushing dancers. She screamed aloud, but she was answered by loud laughter. She wished to stop, but a strong grasp drew her on. She saw him snatch at those hurrying by, but they were so quick that the heavy arms could not reach any of them. It was incomprehensible to her that no one saw him. The agony of death came over her. She thought that ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... the first time since her boy's illness—a strange wan smile. She was thinking how Daniel Granger had threatened her with separation from her child; and now Death had come between them to snatch him from both. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Charles worked steadily, now and then whistling a snatch of tune. Then he went to the druggist and said, 'I have finished the job you gave me. What shall I ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams

... him his coffee. Mangku Nagara, on the contrary, is described as greatly attached to his wives and children, carefully providing for their safety, and visiting them at their places of concealment, whenever he could snatch a temporary interval from his duties as a warrior. Attachment to his family, and attention to religious observances, seem to have been thought quite compatible with a strong attachment to the sex generally; we find him at the village of Zamenang, engaged for two months in copying ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... creatures do, for food; we have no use for parchments or carded wool. We killed as they kill, to fend off our enemies. The Danish sea-wolves and the armored wild beasts of Strongbow and de Lacy hunted us as if we were wolves indeed. What could we do but hunt as the wolves hunt, snatch our meat where we could, hide like foxes in the holes of the mountain, make ourselves dreaded that we might live, and not die? The Normans brought to Dermot MacMurragh two hundred heads of the men of Ossory ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... him, on the whole, satisfied with his part in it. Of his power upon one woman he was now perfectly sure:—Clara had agonized him with a doubt of his personal mastery of any. One was a poor feast, but the pangs of his flesh during the last few days and the latest hours caused him to snatch at it, hungrily if contemptuously. A poor feast, she was yet a fortress, a point of succour, both shield and lance; a cover and an impetus. He could now encounter Clara boldly. Should she resist and defy him, he would not be naked and alone; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the advantage to their side. One of the things that could defeat us is fear—fear of the task we face, fear of adjusting to it, fear that breeds more fear, sapping our faith, corroding our liberties, turning citizen against citizen, ally against ally. Fear could snatch away the very values we are striving ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... gardening; decoration &c 847; calisthenics^. [person who is beautiful] beauty; hunk (of men). V. be beautiful &c adj.; shine, beam, bloom; become one &c (accord) 23; set off, grace. render beautiful &c adj.; beautify; polish, burnish; gild &c (decorate) 847; set out. snatch a grace beyond the reach of art [Pope]. Adj. beautiful, beauteous; handsome; gorgeous; pretty; lovely, graceful, elegant, prepossessing; attractive &c (inviting) 615; delicate, dainty, refined; fair, personable, comely, seemly; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... pistol, and so watery was the top surface that it went clear out of sight; with an oath he stooped to snatch it; and as he did so, Ballantrae leaned forth and stabbed him between the shoulders. Up went his hands over his head—I know not whether with the pain or to ward himself; and the next moment he doubled forward in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... live shall live. Flee from the abominable delights in which thou diest for ever. Snatch from the devils, who will burn it most horribly, that body which God kneaded with His spittle and animated with his own breath. Thou art consumed with weariness; come, and refresh thyself at the ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... She thought it too lonely and silent. She preferred her beflowered boudoir or the sunny garden. Sometimes in these days she feared to follow her own thoughts. She was being pushed—pushed towards the edge of her precipice, and it was only the working of Nature that she should lose her breath and snatch at strange things to stay herself. Between herself and her husband a sort of silence had grown. There were subjects of which they never spoke, and yet each knew that the other's mind was given up to thought ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... rang through the town: the enemy were said to be at hand, and the battle already engaged. Hastily throwing on her armour, with the assistance of her hostess and d'Aulon, she dashed off on her horse, and had only time to snatch her flag, as it was handed to her from a window, so impetuous was she ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... can find one that an ace-full won't go through I'll snatch it so quick the man'll think he's being robbed. Now I'll join you ladies to the extent of some coffee, and then I want to know what you two would rather ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... the only thing to do," he answered. "Life has thrown me back into the old position, and I must face the same foes again. I always rush too eagerly to snatch my good; I always hit my head against some impassable wall. I thought I had won my battles and was ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... Guido from the other snatch'd The letter'd pride; and he perhaps is born Who shall drive ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... into the open. Instantly the weight of the wind became evident. Although on the lea side of the pond, the light boat drifted forward rapidly; and Bobby had to snatch suddenly for his cap. Mr. Kincaid snubbed her at the edge of ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... and the boy making a spring at the same time dropped on the pony's glossy back, but like vaulting ambition overleaped himself and rolled over on the other side, startling the pony into making off. But the dealer made a snatch at the halter, just in time, and ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... purified. Again we heard the signal peal of thunder, but it seemed a great way off, as if the piece was hurrying away to a more urgent quarter. The gentle shower ceased, the black clouds were torn asunder overhead; invisible hands seemed to snatch a gray veil of fleecy clouds from the face of the harvest moon, and it shone out as clear and serene as before the storm. The ditches on each side of the track were half full of water, ties were floating along in them, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... horses, they shine in the sun, And each of the team must weigh nearly a ton. They stamp and they sidle, Their great necks they arch, And snatch at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various

... desk. Then, when the cashier can attend to you, you pay for it. Then you may wait any time until the third person concerned will do it up in paper and string. This last proceeding is often so interminably delayed that if you were not in Germany you would snatch at what you have paid for and make off. But the Polizei alone knows what would happen if you ran your head against the established pedantry of things in the city of the Spree. You would probably find yourself in prison for ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... our bewitched people, was cruelly assaulted by a Spectre, that, she said, ran at her with a spindle: tho' no body else in the Room, could see either the Spectre or the spindle. At last, in her miseries, giving a snatch at the Spectre, she pull'd the spindle away, and it was no sooner got into her hand, but the other people then present, beheld, that it was indeed a Real, Proper, Iron spindle, belonging they knew to whom; which ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... is well that it is you that have dared to snatch the prey from the fangs of the wild beast. Had it been another, this pistol should have sent a ball whizzing through his brain; as it is, go down ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... pick out that strange black mousseline-de-soie! She looked like pictures of foreigners, to tell you the truth, her young lady did! Of course, her grandmamma's pearls would make anything dressy, and there's no denying the black made her arms and neck look like ivory—but to snatch up that flame-coloured scarf her grandpapa had brought from India, and knot it over her shoulder at the last minute! It was downright outlandish. Mrs. Appleyard ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... refinement, he believed that there is as much appetite in a man's ears and eyes as in his stomach, and to feed the latter properly there must be light, a coming and going of old and new faces, the rumor of voices, the jest, and the snatch of song. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face. I caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away. "If there were more priests like you," I cried, "there would be ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... deem not that she standeth now To aid him in this outrage on his home! Misnamed, in truth, were Justice, utterly, If to impiety she lent her hand. Sure in this faith, I will myself go forth And match me with him; who hath fairer claim? Ruler, against one fain to snatch the rule, Brother with brother matched, and foe with foe, Will I confront the issue. ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... unkind or vindictive, but she had a mouse-trap sort of mind which only occasionally was open to the admittance of ideas, but which snapped fast forever upon such few notions as wandered into it. Having once accepted the belief that Jane was not averse to snatch at any good in her way, even if it belonged to another, the senora found herself still under the sway of ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... in expectation; for the expectation of bliss is perhaps even more gratifying than the reality. Thus the rose in its opening bloom, is sweeter than when its charms are expanded to the sight, for the hour of maturity is but the signal of decay. Alas! we eagerly follow the sparkling joy, snatch it with enthusiasm, and it withers in ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... of you not to choose, Ayesha, since I think that when there is work to be done by both of us, we shall find more comfort side by side than if I were on the ground seeking to kiss a garment that doubtless then it would delight you to snatch away." ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... tale, you wouldn't stir from the spot all day, but keep on listening. He was no match for the story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your cap and flee from the house. As I now recall it,—my old mother was alive then,—in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling out of doors, and had so sealed up hermetically the narrow panes of our cottage, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... hope I like it. Bang goes something big away Off there upstairs. The very tread of men As great as those is shattering to the frame Of such a little house. Once left alone, You and I, dear, will go with softer steps Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost

... a pretty face and form. Be as alert in the choice of a wife as you are in a bargain. You don't invest in a house just because it looks well, or buy a suit of clothes at first sight, or dash on change and snatch at the first deal. After you are once married stand by your choice like a man. If you must have your beer, don't sneak out of it on a clove and a lie; carefully weigh the cost, and if you conclude to risk ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... support which so many of them fought, and bled, and died. I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention,—bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expression of your will, to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor;—tell them that compared to disunion, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... to feel indignant in view of the insulting manner in which our young men treated Pere Louis on the way. They were young warriors without sense, and perhaps knew no better. They robbed him and wanted to kill him. They acted like hungry dogs, who snatch a bit of meat from the bark dish, and run. They abused men who brought us iron and merchandise, which we ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... as a tiger in the arena when the guards come and snatch his prey from him. There was a frown on his face darker than that which usually sits on Taurus ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... which would necessarily go down in my journal, I was sufficiently interested not to notice the flight of time, and to allow complete darkness to gather round me while I still leaned over the parapet. Suddenly I was aroused from my contemplations by a snatch of a strange song sung in the most marvelously-sweet voice I had ever heard. I started, not exactly like a guilty thing, but transfixed, as it were, by an almost painful shaft of delight. The voice swelled up on the night air, until, in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... met, That could receive no foile: two wits in growth So just, as had one Soule informed both. Thence (Learned Fletcher) sung the muse alone, As both had done before, thy Beaumont gone. In whom, as thou, had he outlived, so he (Snatch'd first away) survived still in thee. What though distempers of the present Age Have banish'd your smooth numbers from the Stage? You shall be gainers by't; it shall confer To th' making the vast world your Theater. The Presse shall give to ev'ry ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher

... get away!" cried Capt. Noah. "I can't afford to lose a single passenger!" Instantly the boys darted after the fleeing insect, but just as they were about to snatch him up from the deck a wave ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory

... gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and Thomas, snatch some of it for themselves? The old inborn lust for things concrete, lovely things to handle and hold, caught Peter by the throat. In that hour he could have walked without a scruple into an empty house ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... not take them. The satchel upon Miss Greatorex's lap was open, her own and Molly's purses lay within. To snatch them both up and rush away was her impulsive act and to scamper back across the deck, wherever she could find a passage, took but a moment longer. But she was ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... freely in Canadian homes. We also talked over the principle which we were endeavouring to work out with these friendless children, namely, that as the Lord Jesus had given Himself to save us, so we ought to reach out the hand of love, and endeavour to snatch others from lives of misery and want. If we cannot open our own doors to the lost and wayward; ought we not to help in finding out those who can, that the lost and wandering lambs outside in the wilderness might be gathered beneath a sheltering wing ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... spirit; nor, it may be safely said, can the whole library of human history present us a form of heroism superior in kind or degree to that which this illustrious advocate exhibited during nearly two years, when he went forth daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy hope to snatch some human victim from the clutch of the destroyer ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... sand-storm. They lift up their voices to be heard by the wind from the South. They stretch forth their hands to gather the mirage into their bosom. They follow the drum that is beaten among the dunes. They are afraid of life because they know it has two kinds of gifts, and one they snatch at, and one they would refuse. And they are afraid still more of the door that all must enter, Sultan and Nomad—he who has washed himself and made the threefold pilgrimage, and he who is a leper and is eaten by flies. So it is. And nevertheless all that is ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... she wrong. Not only did Mrs. Halfpenny get the half- unconscious girl into bed, but she stayed till evening, and then came back to snatch a meal and say—- ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... must hold a good reading light, well shaded, for who doesn't like to read in bed? There must also be a clock, and there really should be a telephone. And the chaise-longue, or couch, as the case may be, should be both comfortable and beautiful. Who hasn't longed for a comfortable place to snatch ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... milkman trundling his wheelbarrow over a bridge, and, jumping on shore, I waylaid him for the precious luxury, or sent off a boy for bread, and butter, and eggs; but, of course, the times of eating had nothing to do with any hours, or recurring seasons for a meal: you must cook when you can, and snatch a morsel here or there, in a lock or a long reach of the stream. At night the full moon sailed on high, and the crew lay down with their faces over the steamer's side, chattering with their English comrade till ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... vision, they would behold companies of angels that excel in strength stationed about those who have kept the word of Christ's patience. With sympathizing tenderness, angels have witnessed their distress, and have heard their prayers. They are waiting the word of their Commander to snatch them from their peril. But they must wait yet a little longer. The people of God must drink of the cup, and be baptized with the baptism. The very delay, so painful to them, is the best answer to their petitions. As they endeavor to wait trustingly ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... great many speeches, sometimes five or six in a day. He could have had no preparation but the few minutes which he could snatch while waiting for dinner at some house where he was a guest, or late at night, after a hard day's work. But his speeches were gems. They were beautiful in substance and in manner. He was ready for every occasion. When the speaker who welcomed ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... hair in her clenched hand: She stood like statue bronzed and grand: Wakn-de [39] flashed in her fiery eyes; Then, swift as the meteor cleaves the skies— Nay, swift as the fiery Wakinyan's dart, [32] She snatch the knife from the warriors belt, And plunged it clean to the polished hilt— With deadly cry—in the villain's heart. Staggering he clutched the air and fell; His life-blood smoked on the trampled sand, And dripped from the knife in the virgin's hand. ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... heard say. When I flew across the Smiling Pool a little while ago, I saw a fat fish taking a sun-bath right close to the top of the water. Seemed like he was just waiting for some one with hooks to come along and snatch him right out ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess

... me for my unceasing devotion to my work; and would sometimes playfully come behind, as I sat writing, snatch the manuscript from my desk, and substitute in its place some new and popular book, or some time-honored French classic, to which he would command me to give my whole attention for the next two hours, on ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... exhibited the worst form of cowardice, and if the world were made up of such as he, there would be no victories to record. But it is not. It not only contains those who will fight against overwhelming odds, but others who never know that they are beaten, and where indomitable wills often snatch victory from what appears to be defeat. General Grant was one of these, and Rod Blake was made ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... poverty-stricken and utterly disreputable. That he was now wandering about without a home, or money even for gambling. She knew enough of the man to be certain that under such circumstances he would snatch at any means of obtaining money, and what means easier, if he only knew it, than to threaten and persecute her. And at any moment he might discover her—her very acquaintance with Father Paul might betray her to him. She cast a terrified look over all the groups of people on the beach, ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... carried an imitation leather valise, and as I passed, each of the drivers made a snatch at it, almost tearing it from my hands, but being strong as well as desperate, I cleared myself of them, and so, following the crowd, not daring to look to right or left, reached the street and crossed the bridge with a sigh of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... influence of what was pending between him and Mordecai, would not have set himself to find food for laughter in the various shades of departure from the tone of polished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of these men who had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch indulgences, making the utmost of scant opportunity. He looked around him with the quiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered whisky and water, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which, characteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... her work. She was tired and thought to herself: "This is a hard life and I find no joy in it. It sickens me to stand all day in the reek of fish. It sickens me to hear the other women laugh and jest in their rude voices. It sickens me to see the hungry gulls fly above the tables trying to snatch the fish out of my hands. Oh, that someone would come and take me away from here! I would follow him to the ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... cross my path again, may the fulfillment of this new atrocious act be most important to his purpose! For let the vassal world bow down to his imperious will, alone I'll blast the deadly scorpion's wiles, and snatch one victim from his fiend-like fury! Manfredi's daughter! False! false as your accuser's heart! and knowing that, 'tis joy, 'tis transport to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... of what defeat would have meant to him. "How happy I am," he says, "that age and competence bring no serious and permanent disappointment to sour and disgust me with country or mankind."[458] To Weed he shows a heart laden with gratitude. "I snatch a minute," he writes, "to express not so much my deep and deepened gratitude to you, as my amazement at the magnitude and complexity of the dangers through which you have conducted our shattered bark, and the sagacity and skill with which you have saved us from ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... with that spicy feeling which to-day's strange, vivid and unwholesome beauty of Jennie excited in him. It proved that he had some important, undeferrable business this morning; it was necessary to go home and snatch a bit of sleep if only for a couple of hours. But, having told good-bye to his companions, he, before going out of the cabinet, rapidly and with deep significance pointed the door out to Jennie with his eyes. She understood, slowly, scarcely perceptibly, lowered ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... tennis-match in which her son-in-law was engaged. Her fatigue had been a sufficient pretext for declining the drive, and she had begged Leila to think of her as peacefully resting in her room till such time as they could snatch their quiet moment. ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... maker would get safely away with his goods; and he did. But it seemed odd—to an absurdly sensitive, non-Teutonic mind it seemed somehow to lack justice— that the picture-framer, after having been ruined, must risk his life in order to snatch from the catastrophe the debris of his career. Further on, within the city itself, but near the edge of it, two men were removing uninjured planks from the upper floor of a house; the planks were all there was in the ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett

... the time, Narcissus felt that Alice's great eyes were on him, glowing with glad surprise. The service proceeded, but yet he forbore to seek her. He took a delight in husbanding his coming joy. He would not crudely snatch it. It would be all the sweeter for waiting. And the fire in Alice's eyes would all the time be growing softer and softer. He nearly looked as he thought of that. And surely that was her dear voice calling to him in the secret language of the psalm. He ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... that they never suspected. If you had told them he was a dreamer of dreams, for example, they would have been amused. Sometimes, dead-tired by nine o'clock after a hard day downtown, he would doze over the evening paper. At intervals he would wake, red-eyed, to a snatch of conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a blue you can wear it anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's quiet, too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... brandy on the sill outside the window. The Kafirs were standing about in groups, looking very fierce, but they saw the elephant-gun and did nothing. But as she barred the shutter again, she heard them rush up and snatch the bottles. ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... the concourse of people, for his great sagacity and prudence made him not only liked but loved by all. He was buried in our convent, at the foot of the high altar, among the religious. Beyond doubt our Lord chose to snatch him from this life on that day which he so much venerated, so that he should see the reward which the Lord gave him for so great devotion. He was a liberal almsgiver, and at the time of his death had nothing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, To you the dotard has a deal to say, In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way! He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle, That the first blow is ever half the battle; That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him, Yet by the foreclock is the hold to catch him; That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, You may ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... no tactician, but he knew the human heart. He knew that at any cost France must lead off with a victory, not only for the sake of the little man in the red trousers, but to impress watching Europe, and perhaps snatch an ally from among the hesitating powers. And the result was Saarbrueck. The news of it filtered through to Colonel Gilbert, who was now quartered in the grey, picturesque Watrin barracks at Bastia, which jut out between the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... method I owe the greatest part of my reading: for, from twenty to forty, I should certainly have read very little, if I had not been up while my acquaintances were in bed. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination; never put off till to-morrow what you can do today. That was the rule of the famous and unfortunate Pensionary ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... thought her son too mighty for Winifred. Our laudable efforts at cousinly friendship usually produce war-whoops that bring the two mammas each to snatch her own offspring from the fray, with a scolding for the sake of appearances though believing the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves ...
— The Republic • Plato

... his stomach turned at the thought of eating blue bacon fried in a pan that was open to receive any little thing that might chance to drop in. He was now so hardened that he could eat a piece of duck washed in the thick water, or would snatch a piece of bacon off of the mud and swallow it ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... carry arms and fight bravely. When the men go to war, the women bring them food and provisions; when they see their strength declining in combat, they run to their assistance, and fight along with them; but, if by any chance their husbands behave with cowardice, they snatch their arms from them, and abuse them, calling them mean, and unworthy of having a wife." Upon these feelings there has even been built a law in Suli, which must deeply interest the pride of women in the martial honor of their ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... which her name would have given new lustre. The young reader will probably long that it should be so; he will feel it an injustice, a wrong to humanity that so generous a soul should have no reward; it will seem to him almost a personal injury that there should not be a noble chevalier at hand to snatch that devoted Maid out of the danger that threatened her, out of the horrible fate that befell her; and we can imagine a generous boy, and enthusiastic girl, ready to gnash their teeth at the terrible and dishonouring ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... hair-dressings, idle gossipings, dangerous dalliances, inglorious pursuits, silly trifles, emptiness, vanity, and sin? "But in the country," writes Jerome, "it is true our bread will be coarse, our drink water, and our vegetables we must raise with our own hands; but sleep will not snatch us from agreeable discourse, nor satiety from the pleasures of study. In the summer the shade of the trees will give us shelter, and in the autumn the falling leaves a place of repose. The fields will be painted with flowers, and amid the warbling of birds we will more ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... horrible haste in manner and voice, A desperate hungry imploring haste; I rush'd up the stairs—I had not a choice, And I snatch'd the notes from where they were plac'd All that I had—to the window I rush'd— With kisses and tears in his hands I laid; He return'd the kisses, with lips that crush'd Their ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart

... cheerful carelessness the root of which is not happiness but the conviction that the future is so uncertain and the possibilities so dreadful that he is wise who lives for the hour only, even as the hour may snatch life from him. I thought I knew the head in front of me, and, leaning forward, saw it was my brother-in-law. It has always struck me as quaint that he, who had been with his battery for a year and a half, and I, who had been out for nine months, should have met again under such circumstances. ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan

... half-way through the door and Rudolf about to follow him, the other door, that which Bernenstein guarded, was softly yet swiftly opened. Bernenstein's sword was in rest in an instant. A muttered oath from Sapt and Rudolf's quick snatch at his breath greeted the interruption. Bernenstein did not look round, but his sword fell to his side. In the doorway stood Queen Flavia, all in white; and now her face turned white as her dress. For her eyes had fallen on Rudolf Rassendyll. For ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... which it had occurred to him—as the merest fleeting impression—that Oliver had repeated a saying or had twisted an opinion of his unfairly—puzzling instances, in which, had it been any one else, Ferrier would have seen the desire to snatch a personal advantage at his, Ferrier's, expense. But how entertain such a notion in the case ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... practical sagacity. The sole important issue was the encouraging of the peace party at Paris, with a view to the revocation of the aggressive decrees of the Convention. In private, Fox had admitted that they were wholly indefensible; and yet, in order to snatch an oratorical triumph, he fired off a diatribe which could not but stiffen the necks of the French Jacobins. At such a crisis the true statesman merges the partisan in the patriot and says not a word to weaken his own Government and hearten its opponents. To this height of self-denial ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... destruction of his hopes and an absolute end to his career. The struggle was a long one—it was pathetic beyond words to watch it, and there was a choky feeling in many a throat on the Wolf—for some time it even seemed as if the Hitachi were going to snatch one more victory from the sea; she seemed to be defying the efforts of the waves to devour her, as, gently rolling, she shook herself free from the gradually encroaching water; but she was slowly getting lower in the water, and just before ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes

... me your golden toy, laughing maid, lovely maid, Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your toy! It's all one to me, girl, whatever it be, girl So long as it's round that's enough for a boy. Boy, come and catch it then!—there now! Don't snatch it then! Here comes your toy! Apples were made for a ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... might be able to snatch another brief interview with Ray. At all events she should see him, and that would be ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... interval of rest; of a small Madonna and Child, [115] peeping sideways in half-reassured terror, as a mighty griffin with batlike wings, one of Leonardo's finest inventions, descends suddenly from the air to snatch up a great wild beast wandering near them. But note in these, as that which especially belongs to art, the contour of the young man's hair, the poise of the slave's arm above his head, and the curves of the head of the child, following ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... respect you, Jones, are wrong, and you had no business to snatch away Ellis's Bible; but you, Ellis, broke through the rules of discipline by knocking Jones over. You must reserve your blows for the enemies of your country. I must therefore punish you. It is your first offence, but it ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston

... quite Frenchman-like to-day; But don't be vexed beyond all measure. What boots it thus to snatch at pleasure? 'Tis not so great, by a long way, As if you first, with tender twaddle, And every sort of fiddle-faddle, Your little doll should mould and knead, As one in French romances ...
— Faust • Goethe

... closed on the last guest and Bess at the piano was playing a snatch of a waltz, Carl pounced upon his aunt and carried her off before she ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... gauntlet from his left wrist to snatch a glimpse at his watch, In five minutes Graham would be getting off the train at Eldorado. Dick, himself homeward bound west from Sacramento, was eating up the miles. In a quarter of an hour the train that he identified ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... thee up to fill the highest place! Whether to till thy corn and give the tithe, Whether to grope a picket in the dark, Or, having nobly served, to be cast down, And, unregarded, passed by meaner feet, Or, happier thou, to snatch the fadeless crown, And walk in youth and beauty to God's rest,— The purpose makes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... doze in his chair over his newspaper, and Ann was kneeling by a trunk in the hall, folding small articles tightly, and fitting them into corners. To Tembarom she looked even more than usual like a slight child thing one could snatch up in one's arms and carry about or set on one's knee without feeling her weight at all. An inferior gas-jet on the wall just above her was doing its best with the lot of soft, red hair, which would have been an untidy bundle if it ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a clear conscience in this matter. I will not be told hereafter that I saw you swallowing this palpable bait, and never stirred a finger to snatch it from you, and show you the hook while there was yet time; that I watched you nibbling, saw the hook well in and the fish hauled up, and then stood by shedding useless tears. A grave charge, indeed, were I to leave it in your power to bring it; such neglect would admit of no palliation. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... instance, what do you think, at the moment after the holy mass has been performed in Saint Peter's at Rome, just as the pope is about to put the sacred wafer into his mouth and bless the whole world, I make him snatch the wafer out of the pope's hand, and get ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... no bound, no term is set. Whether you everywhere be trying, Or snatch a rapid bliss in flying, May it agree with you, what you get! Only fall to, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... bill in the Senate which would add a complete wing to the Smithsonian to house this satellite and other similar historic objects. In later testimony Mr. Orville Larkin, leader of the unnamed committee representing those in opposition to the CCSB stated that his group felt that to snatch Beta from orbit at this moment of its greatest glory would be contrary to natural law and that he and his supporters would never concede to ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy

... divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys. Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarr'd the full fruition Of thy favors, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odors, that give life like glances from a neighbor's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy holders take delight, An ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... I received their letters. The mere fact of being on the spot, of course, in itself was a great thing; and when I knew that I could be called in a moment, as soon as he was awake and wanted me, I felt capable, even in the dark, chill morning twilight, to snatch an hour or two's sleep. As it happened, I was so worn out with the strain of anxiety, and he so quieted and consoled by knowing I had come, that I was not disturbed till the afternoon, when the ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... sinister sentinels gave him a sense of safety, on which his serenity was founded. In his lap was a banjo which he thrummed vigorously, with rhythmic precision, if no greater musical art, and head and body and feet, all gave emphasis to the movement. At intervals, his raucous voice rumbled a snatch of song. It was evident that the moonshiner was mellow from draughts of his own ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... might be found to convey him to France, there to await better times and to secure foreign allies. A price was on his head, his enemies would certainly be soon on his traces, he dared not delay longer than to snatch a hasty meal and drink ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... "Snatch my bowlines!" he cried, in a tone reminding me of Captain Cawson; "he'd better 'ware of running across my course. If I come athwart his hawser I'll turn ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any president may perform, you have forever hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the Constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay

... and brought the tailor on deck. Needless to say, he had not slept a wink all night. Who, accustomed to a feather-bed, could snatch even ten minutes' sleep when his couch is Thames ballast? Sloper's eyes were bloodshot, and his countenance haggard. He looked inconceivably grimy and forlorn, and Bob Robins felt sorry for the little creature till he ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... all so awfully sudden! No time to think, to plan, to evade! Just time to snatch from belt his keen little axe, to fling out the weaponless left hand and catch with it from below that murderous lower jaw, then, with all his own wildcat quickness and last ounce of ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... me your hand! Why do you shrink from me? If you could know The fire that burns me night and day, you would not Refuse to let me snatch one cooling kiss From that ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... be put into your hands by Dr. Shippen, a physician, who has been here some time with Miss Poyntz, and is at this moment setting out for your metropolis; so I snatch the opportunity of writing to you and my kind friend Mrs. Garrick. I see nothing like her here, and yet I have been introduced to one half of their best Goddesses, and in a month more shall be admitted to the shrines of the other half; but I neither worship or fall (much) ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... golden toy, laughing maid, lovely maid, Lovely maid, laughing maid, toss me your toy! It's all one to me, girl, whatever it be, girl So long as it's round that's enough for a boy. Boy, come and catch it then!—there now! Don't snatch it then! Here comes your toy! Apples were made for a girl ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... enthusiasm of an American majority. For such an aberration there is but a single and efficient remedy: absorption in our own affairs, the discriminating study of efficient methods to prevent our being caught up by a whirlwind, even the outer edges of which may snatch us into the vortex. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... dish nestled to catch the warmth, a tin of Canadian salmon, which Billy had neglected to open, leaned affectionately against the other. Suddenly the engineer's kettle boiled over, and as Billy hurried to snatch it from the coals, the salmon-tin exploded with an awe-inspiring bang, and oily fragments of fish rained from the ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... be surprised if some of the gaiety and exuberance and fun got no less into his manner towards the people whose habit is to shield their eyes with the spectacles of convention. Beardsley had a keen sense of humour that helped him to snatch all the joy there is in the old, time-honoured, youthful game of getting on the nerves of established respectability. Naturally, so Robert Ross, his friend, has said of him, "he possessed what is called an artificial manner"; that is, his manner was ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... she meant to him, and cursed himself anew. While he had the power to possess her he had dallied and hesitated, but now that he had no voice in it, now that she was irretrievably beyond his reach, he vowed to snatch her and ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... the forky radiance blazed, And high in air the rod divine He raised.— Wide yawns the cliff!—amid the thirsty throng 410 Rush the redundant waves, and shine along; With gourds and shells and helmets press the bands, Ope their parch'd lips, and spread their eager hands, Snatch their pale infants to the exuberant shower, Kneel on the shatter'd rock, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... this partial grace, To one alone of Afric's sable race; From age to age transmitting thus his name With the finest glory in the rolls of fame? Thy virtues, great Maecenas! shall be sung In praise of him, from whom those virtues sprung: While blooming wreaths around thy temples spread, I'll snatch a laurel from thine honour'd head, While you indulgent smile ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... General Cat Contrived to hang himself, as dead, Beside the wall with downward head, Resisting gravitation's laws By clinging with his hinder claws To some small bit of string. The rats esteem'd the thing A judgment for some naughty deed, Some thievish snatch, Or ugly scratch; And thought their foe had got his meed By being hung indeed. With hope elated all Of laughing at his funeral, They thrust their noses out in air; And now to show their heads they dare; Now dodging back, now venturing more; At last upon the larder's ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... its fixed eyes. But of a sudden, when the child's head was on a level with those gaping jaws, the lips curled backward in a ghastly parody of a smile, a weird, uncanny sound whizzed through the bared teeth, the passive body bulked as with a shock, and Cleek had just time to snatch the boy back when the great jaws struck together with a snap that would have splintered a skull of iron had they ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... bunch of field-flowers in her hand, looks down at him patiently and seems to say, "Come, my dear, get up." There is surely no great point in this; the only point is life, the glimpse of the little snatch of poetry in prose. It is a matter of a few broad strokes of the crayon; yet the pleasant laziness of the man, the idleness of the day, the fragment of homely, familiar dialogue, the stretch of the field ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... where the friendless stranger lies; To perish is his doom: Snatch from the grave his closing eyes. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison in 1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in Pennsylvania, for here also originated ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... nothing much but scrap-iron out of what's left," growled McCloskey, climbing out of the tangle of crushed cars and bent and twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-line embankment. Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for the next pull: "A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won't overbalance on you; that's about it. Now, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... that the smaller birds did not appear to be at all afraid of me, but would hop about within a yard's distance, looking for worms and other food, with as much indifference and security as if no creature at all were near them. I remember, a thrush had the confidence to snatch out of my hand, with his bill, a of cake that Glumdalclitch had just given me for my breakfast. When I attempted to catch any of these birds, they would boldly turn against me, endeavouring to peck my fingers, which I durst not venture within ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... At the outer end of the derrick, the dynamometer and a fourteen-inch block were attached. The maximum strain which could be supported was ten tons. In paying out, the wire was led from the head of the derrick to a snatch-block on the quarter (E), constructed so as to admit of its disengagement from the wire when it was necessary to heave in. This block kept the wire clear of the propeller and allowed us to have the vessel moving slow or fast as required, while the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... is good for anything he will do it directly; if he refuses he is good for nothing." But the boy who could experiment in the attic of an apothecary shop with an old pan and glass vials during every moment he could snatch from his work saw an opportunity in washing bottles, which led to a professorship at the Royal Academy at Woolwich. Tyndall said of this boy with no chance, "He is the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of the discussion they arrived at the company grounds, and had scarcely time to snatch up their guns and don their belts before the company moved out to take its place in ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... "I couldn't snatch away the time, nohow-camping. You know yourself... We had to put away twenty-five versts a day. The whole day drilling and drilling: field, formation, garrison. With a full pack. Used to get so fagged ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... them a bulwark which shall resist the oncoming tide of socialism, anarchism and of atheism, which is trying to overwhelm our American institutions, rob us of our public-school system, profane our Sabbath and snatch the scepter ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various

... the city. The Athenians were well pleased by this sudden relief, and concluding that their work was done for the day, they disembarked at leisure, and began to prepare their midday meal. But before they had time to snatch a mouthful, the whole Syracusan fleet was seen advancing again from the opposite shore, and the hungry and weary Athenian crews were summoned on board to repel a second attack. This crafty manoeuvre was due to a suggestion of Ariston, the most skilful of the Corinthian seamen, by ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... bridge above being alone used for transit, and is quite inaccessible except to birds and the climbing wicked boys of the neighbourhood, who sometimes at the risk of their lives contrive to get upon it from the frightfully steep northern bank, and snatch a fearful joy, as, whilst lying on their bellies, they poke their heads over its sides worn by age, without parapet to prevent them from falling into the horrid gulf below. But from the steps in the hollow the view ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... known no skill in my world that could snatch from death its unlawful prey of youth. But here, in this land so eminently blessed, no one regarded death as a dreaded invader ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... chid me for my unceasing devotion to my work; and would sometimes playfully come behind, as I sat writing, snatch the manuscript from my desk, and substitute in its place some new and popular book, or some time-honored French classic, to which he would command me to give my whole attention for the next two hours, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... was very near her destination now, and was nosing her way carefully through the traffic, convoyed by two snorting and puffing tugs. The raucous shouts and cries of sailors and watermen came to their ears, with now and then a snatch of song from the decks of some tall, four-masted freighter. There were shouts of "aye, aye, sir" and "ship, ahoy," mingled with the rasping of cables and the clatter of cargo cranes—and behind all this noise and confusion lay the quaint, historic ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... cruel boy, to drown poor Kitty!" exclaimed the indignant Hannah, rushing into the yard and endeavoring to snatch her feline favorite—an attempt ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... lips formed the words. I hardly spoke them; but he understood, and with a flash in his eyes took a step towards me as if to snatch my hand. I drew away. He followed, but at this instant Marianne ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... you hold this, and I'll go." I dash to the bureau. Sure enough, he is right about the cushion. I glance hastily about. There, in a little saucer, are a half-dozen of the sort I want. I snatch some and ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... trace their steps I strove, I saw them urge the camel's hastening flight, Till the white vapor, like a rising grove, Snatch'd them forever from ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... the helpless girl from Tom's grasp; she was sinking again. Strong man as he was, Grantley Mellen's courage gave way; then covering his face with his hands he sallied back, resting against a tree, afraid to look again. White and cold, Elizabeth watched the boat drift one way, and saw Tom snatch at the girl's dress and get her again in the grasp of ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... had watched the black snatch the reptile from the box which held it, and then it was as if he had snatched forth a dozen serpents which were ever after twining and intertwining in continuous motion and flashing the while in a wonderful quivering, endlessly moving flame of ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... Queen. That the horrid object might not escape observation, the monsters had mounted upon each other's shoulders so as to lift the bleeding head quite up to the prison bars. The King came just in time to snatch Her Majesty from the, spot, and thus she was prevented from seeing it. He took her up in his arms and carried her to a distant part of the Temple, but the mob pursued her in her retreat, and howled ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... needless absence of fish. And the presence of ill-governed cities means the needless and deadly pollution of water that never was meant for a sewer. The idea is the same in each disgraceful case. It is, simply, to snatch whatever is most coveted for the moment, with least trouble to one's self, and at no matter what expense to Nature and the future of man. The cant phrase is only too well known—"Lots more where that came from". Exploitation is destroying now what civilisation will long ...
— Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood

... still in her chamber, and, as for the waiting maid, I heard her but five minutes since singing away as if there were no music in the world but her own. Truly, it sounded more like a snatch from some profane ballad than a godly hymn. I will tutor her about this levity. Now do not be angry, dear life," added the dame, whose heart was made more tender, and her tongue more communicative, by the anxieties she had suffered during the night, on her husband's account; "but I have ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... this. He reflected while he was examining the bills. Madame Arnoux's name, traced by her own hand, brought once more before his eyes her entire person, and the insult which he had received at her hands. Since vengeance was offered to him, why should he not snatch at it? ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... of our fellow-sufferers, knowing the horrible fate in store for them, managed to snatch knives from the belts of our captors and commit suicide before our eyes, preferring death by their own hands to decapitation by the executioners of Prempeh, that bloodthirsty monarch who has now happily been deposed by the British Government, but who ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... probably of this storm, arrived and suddenly showed herself. To rush forward, snatch away the dagger and my child was but one movement for her. Her tears coursed in abundance; and the King, leaning on the marble of my chimney-piece, shed tears and seemed to feel ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... last look at it!" "Where is it?" said I. "Oh, in the next room on the reading-desk." "Well," said I, "if you don't like to go in and get it, I'll fetch it for you." And remembering well the position of my reading-table, which had been close to the door of the retiring-room, I darted in, hoping to snatch the manuscript without attracting the attention of the audience, with which the room was already nearly full. I had been used to deliver my reading seated, at a very low table, but my friend Thackeray gave his lectures standing, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... two hands in manipulating his match and cigarette, his rifle leaned against the limbs of one of the largest mesquite bushes, where he could snatch it ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... hot forehead against the cold glass, and strained her aching eyes in gazing out on the lovely sky of a winter's night. The impulse was strong upon her to snatch up a shawl, and wrapping it round her head, to sally forth and enjoy the glory; and time was when that impulse would have been instantly followed; but now, Ruth's eyes filled with tears, and she stood quite still, dreaming ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the French were attacked by natives at Swan Port, and Mouge was probably of the party. A native attempted to snatch the drawings; "then to strike down our weak friend, when he was prevented by those who ran to his assistance." The French say, they loaded them with favors, and did not avenge this violence. It is, no doubt, this account which Mr. Gell confused with ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... all defaults he was still his. Just so, I see better than any other, that all I write here are but the idle reveries of a man that has only nibbled upon the outward crust of sciences in his nonage, and only retained a general and formless image of them; who has got a little snatch of everything and nothing of the whole, 'a la Francoise'. For I know, in general, that there is such a thing as physic, as jurisprudence: four parts in mathematics, and, roughly, what all these aim and point at; and, peradventure, I yet know farther, what sciences in general pretend unto, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... delight, for fortune smiled upon the Norseman's efforts at last, or else the little walrus threw one flipper over the rope and hugged it to its fat side, with the result that the line was tightened with a snatch, and its egg-like body was suddenly compressed into a ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... verse does not snatch you away from ordinary associations and hurry you along with it as is the wont of the higher kinds of poetry, but leaves you, as it were, upon the bank watching the peaceful current and lulled by its somewhat monotonous murmur. His ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... As now that they are stained and graved with time And mossed with lichens, every grim old mask That grins upon their pillars bearded o'er With waving sprays of slender maidenhair? Ah, no! I cannot think it; things of art Snatch nature's graces from the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... She seemed inclined to snatch the note out of his hand, but he stepped back quickly out of reach, hastily deposited it in the note-book, and that in ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... I've cramp in my legs, Sitting so long atop of my eggs! Never a minute for rest to snatch; I wonder when they are going ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... especially now that it is the fashion to have the pocket at the back. Still, I have often thought how easy it would be for a thief or a pickpocket or some other dreadful creature of that kind, don't you know, to make a snatch and—in fact, the thing has actually happened. Why, I knew a lady—Mrs. Moggridge, you know, Juliet—no, it wasn't Mrs. Moggridge, that was another affair, it was Mrs.—Mrs.—dear me, how silly of me!—now, what was her name? Can't you help me, Juliet? ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... him with frightened eyes, her lips apart, her hands to her breast. The tableau was brief. He could not strike her down. With a curse he was turning to the man on the floor, eager to snatch the keys from his belt. A scream from her drawn lips held him; he whirled and looked into the now haggard face of the girl he had considered beautiful. The penalty for her crime was already written there. She was ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... fencing, he crossed swords and attacked vigorously, with the sensation the next moment that he had received a sharp jerk of the wrist as his rapier described a curve in the air and the doctor leaped up, making a snatch with his left hand, and catching it by the middle of the blade as it fell, to hold it to its ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... Rhodesians saw something else—they saw a huge German officer emerge from a dugout just in rear of the ape-man. They saw him snatch up a discarded rifle with bayonet fixed and creep upon the apparently unconscious Tarzan. They ran forward, shouting warnings; but above the pandemonium of the trenches and the machine gun their voices could not reach him. The German leaped upon the parapet ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... what I would advise you to do; for if our last-night's work was severe, you may be sure that our next will be far more so. And so good-night, or rather good-morning." And, throwing himself on the grass, the guerilla, accustomed to snatch sleep at all hours, had his eyes shut in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... down the path with a distracted air, like a man overwhelmed with business, only too pleased to snatch a moment's leisure between the parting and the coming client. He always loved to pass for ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... you got to be so rough on the boys, Sadie," deplored Mrs. Thomas, rocking slowly back and forth in a large chair. "'Course we know they're devils and all, but if it wasn't for their goin's on, trying to snatch a kiss now and then, life would seem awful tame for us poor, patient women. And even the worst of 'em's better'n none at all. Look at me! I had the luck to get a cross-grained, cranky one, as you know. Poor Seth!" She drew a handkerchief ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... time a city of itself as great and as powerful as Sparta, and had the forces of the Achaeans and of Antigonus encamping beside it; and it was chiefly the Megalopolitans' doing, that Antigonus had been called in to assist the Achaeans. Cleomenes, resolving to snatch the city (no other word so well suits so rapid and so surprising an action), ordered his men to take five days' provision, and marched to Sellasia, as if he intended to ravage the country of the Argives; ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... Brer Rabbit, sezee, "snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs," sezee, "but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... Jump up, boys, and use your own glasses! I behold a large man on a gray horse, riding slowly along, as if he were inspecting troops away behind the trenches. Wherever he passes the soldiers snatch off their caps and, although I can't hear 'em, I know they're cheering. It's ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the self-sacrifice, I suppose," said De Forest, making a languid snatch at a butterfly fluttering near. "The possibility, we will say, that it might please the gentle old babbler to come under the condescension of your notice. How would ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... Mr. Belt says (46. 'The Naturalist in Nicaragua,' 1874, p. 321.) that as soon as he saw its happy sense of security, he felt sure that it was uneatable. After several trials he succeeded in tempting a young duck to snatch up a young one, but it was instantly rejected; and the duck "went about jerking its head, as if trying to throw off ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... significant tints and touches, there is unveiled a world of beauty. You see the roots of a single hill only, and a remote mountain-summit, but you think of Alps and Andes, and the eye presses onwards till it at last rests on a low cloud at the horizon. It is a mere snatch of Nature, but, though only that, every square inch of the surface has its meaning. It carries you back to what your mind imagines of the warm, reddish tints of the Brown Mountains of Cervantes, where the shepherds and shepherdesses of that pastoral scene passed their happy, sunny ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... burlesqued hypocrites with their own gravity. Numbers judge only by the outside, and never reach the spirit of writing or of man. They laugh at the contortions of grimace, but of the mysteries of mind or the pains of heart which underlie the contortions they know nothing. They snatch their rapid pleasure, and leave unvalued the worth of him who gives it; they care not for the cost of genius or labor at which it has been procured; and when they have had their transient indulgence, they have had all they sought and all that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... wake up, I light me a lamp an look on de floor an dere, side o' my bed was my dress, layin right over dat flaxseed, so's she could walk over on de dress, big as life. I snatch up de dress an throw it an de bed; den I go to sleep, an I ain never been bothered ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... outrages.[3419] The president, at certain sessions, is obliged three times to put on his hat and, at last, breaks his bell. They insult him, force him to leave his seat and demand that "he be removed.' Bazire tries to snatch a declaration presented by him "out of his hands." Bourdon, from the department of Oise, cries out to him that if he "dares to read it he will assassinate him."[3420] The chamber "has become an arena of gladiators."[3421] Sometimes the entire "Mountain" darts from its benches on ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand, though he held it back of him out of sight. It was so thick that it resembled a book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery period his memory failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance at his manuscript—which much injured the effect. Again this happened, and then a third time. The poor man's face was red with embarrassment, the whole great house was pitying him, which made the matter worse; then Joan dropped ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... possessed of but one kind—that grim, sardonic quality which we find so often among the Elizabethans—that mocking irony most like the grin upon a skull. His fools are his best characters, so far as strength and originality go. Here is a snatch from the wise conversation of two of these worthies in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... his eyes as he looked up at a great blackbird, winging its way high up above the top of the great cliff which hung over the river, and watched till it disappeared, when, in a low melodious voice, he began singing softly another snatch of an old English song, something about three ravens that sat upon a tree, with a chorus of: "Down, a-down, a-down," which he repeated again and again, as if ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... But at least it contained water in which both men and horses could forget the heat of the veldt. All day the weary cavalrymen waited for the supplies, which did not come until they were attempting to snatch a few hours of sleep. The transport horses stumbled and strained their way up the banks in the early hours ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm

... to enable me to proceed in the manner of Laplace and of Say, I still cannot but believe that the mode adopted by me has also its modest usefulness. It appears to me likewise to be well suited to the wants of the age, and to the broken moments which it is now the habit to snatch ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... tool in the hands of others, but he stands out as the head and centre of the conspiracy. There is a violent and a strong party, consisting chiefly of the disbanded soldiers, but of some drawn from every class of the inhabitants, whose object is by a sudden attack to snatch the city from the Roman garrison; and placing Antiochus on the throne, proclaim their independence again, and prepare themselves to maintain and defend it. They make use of Antiochus because of his connection with Zenobia, and the influence he would exert through that prejudice, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... enemies, the elements and germs and insect destroyers, attack us every minute without cease, yet we murder one another as if we were out of our senses. Death is ever on the watch for us, and we think of nothing but to snatch a few patches of land! About 5,000,000,000 days of work go every year to the displacement of boundary lines. Think of what humanity could obtain if that prodigious effort were devoted to fighting our real enemies, the noxious species and ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... "If I snatch a moment to breathe," Hamilton was beginning, when he suddenly caught two right hands and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... did not notice him. He was not only excited with his play, but visions were gleaming on him of going the next day to Brassing, where there was gambling on a grander scale to be had, and where, by one powerful snatch at the devil's bait, he might carry it off without the hook, and buy his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... Nintee. Slow Yoona, or Yawna. Small Coosa. Smell, to Kannoong, or Kashashoong. Smell Kabbasha[107]. Smoke, to Footchoong, or kootchoong. Smoke Kinsee. Smoking tobacco Tobacco fookee. Smooth Nandooroosa. Smooth down, to Nadeeyoong. Snake Haboo. Snake stings Haboo cootee. Snatch, to Katayoong. Sneeze, to Honna feeoong. Snore, to Nintoong. Snuff (lit. nose tobacco) Spachee, or Honna Tobacco. Sole of the foot (lit. belly of the foot) Shanna watta. Son Ic'kkeega oongua. Song Oota[108]. Sore from riding Nautee. Sorry Natskasha. Sour Seesa. South Whfa or fa. Speak, to Moonooyoong[109]. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... all are women in the sight of God. And as for such foolish, sinful lives as the townfolk lead, playing cards and dancing, and all manner of frivolous conversation, it were a mercy to snatch one from the burning. She was a nice little child last year. I must reduce her to obedience again, and some sense of a useful, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... exciting hours that began when we moved from Jan Massibi's at daybreak on Wednesday and ended when we lay down to snatch a little rest at daybreak on Thursday. Many miles were travelled, a great enterprise was brought to a successful issue, a tough battle was fought, men received wounds and died, Mafeking was relieved: enough incident ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... think about this great possibility, the thought held him in its grip. In fact, it shut out all others. Through busy days and sleepless nights he turned it over and over. And often, while engaged in other duties, he would snatch his notebook from his pocket in order to outline the new instrument he had in mind and jot down the signs he would ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... million to one. You may make indeed as many Haydons and H——s as you put into that sort of machine, but not one Reynolds amongst them all, with his grace, his grandeur, his blandness of gusto, 'in tones and gestures hit,' unless you could make the man over again. To snatch this grace beyond the reach of art is then the height of art—where fine art begins, and where mechanical skill ends. The soft suffusion of the soul, the speechless breathing eloquence, the looks 'commercing with the skies,' the ever-shifting forms of an eternal ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... amiable brother of theirs that they never suspected. If you had told them he was a dreamer of dreams, for example, they would have been amused. Sometimes, dead-tired by nine o'clock, after a hard day down town, he would doze over the evening paper. At intervals he would wake, red-eyed, to a snatch of conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a blue you can wear it anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's quiet, too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... accepts each vow, Which to his gracious pleasure love conforms. from the world, to follow her, when young Escap'd; and, in her vesture mantling me, Made promise of the way her sect enjoins. Thereafter men, for ill than good more apt, Forth snatch'd me from the pleasant cloister's pale. God knows how after that my life was fram'd. This other splendid shape, which thou beholdst At my right side, burning with all the light Of this our orb, what of myself I tell May to herself apply. From her, like me A sister, with ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... it into effect. It were a thousand times better to live a free life on the sea, even if certain at last to be overpowered by a Danish fleet, than to lurk a hunted fugitive in the woods; but I cannot do it. So long as I live I must remain among my people, ready to snatch any chance that may offer of striking a blow against the invader. But for ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... that one sober industry, which can ever lead him to happiness; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his footsteps have never yet been led that way; and to lure him back to it if they have strayed: in a word, to snatch him from destruction, and restore him to society a penitent and useful member. The importance of such an establishment, in every point of view, and with reference to every consideration of humanity and social policy, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... loved; after c, ch, sh, f, k, x, and after the consonants s, th, when more strongly pronounced, and sometimes after m, n, r, if preceded by a short vowel, t is used in pronunciation, but very seldom in writing rather than d; as plac't, snatch't, fish't, wak't, dwel't, smel't for plac'd, snatch'd, fish'd, wak'd, dwel'd, smel'd; or placed, snatched, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... months of intense excitement I snatch a leisure moment to tell you how much I enjoy my first visit to London. Having been educated abroad, it really seems like coming to a strange city. At first the smoke, dirt and noise were very disagreeable, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... more curious, certainly more comical. .. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... perturbed spirit, however, and at last Burt stole out and sat by the dying fire. When the mind is ready for impressions, a very little thing will produce them vividly, and Amy's snatch of song about "Jack and Jill" had awakened Burt at last to a consciousness that he might be carrying his attention to Miss Hargrove too far, in view of his vows and inexorable purpose of constancy. He assured himself that his only object was to have a good time, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... clamoured for the promised game at once, and soon the flicker from the flaming bow lighted up the darkened nursery as, around the witch-like caldron, they watched their opportunity to snatch the lucky raisin. The room rang so loudly with fun and laughter that even the King himself, big of head and rickety of legs, shambled in good-humouredly to join in the sport that was giving so much ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the justice, and the power or might of God—"His goodness, for He did not despise the weakness of His own handiwork; His justice, since, on man's defeat, He caused the tyrant to be overcome by none other than man, and yet He did not snatch men forcibly from death; His wisdom, for He found a suitable discharge for a most heavy debt; His power, or infinite might, for there is nothing greater than for God to become incarnate . ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... tortured savages whose chief offense was that they worshipped God in their own way, and it will continue to be so until the last missionary has taken up his last collection and laid in his winter's coal therewith. The ICONOCLAST has done its level best to snatch the Chicago brand from the burning and now and then some Chicago man walks straight for a little way under the influence of its teaching, but one journal cannot do the work of a hundred, nor is the whole of heathendom to be saved by one preacher. Until the great sweeping ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... which I lost sight of the murderer; for, as I have noted in my papers, he arrived two seconds before Monsieur Stangerson, Daddy Jacques, and myself at the meeting-point of the two galleries. That would have given Larsan time to go through the 'off-turning' gallery, snatch off his false beard, return, and hurry with us as if, like us, in pursuit of the murderer. I was sure now I had got hold of the right end in my reasoning. With Frederic Larsan was now always associated, in my mind, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... shearing feasts he was not above the pleasures of the country dance, the Ledder-te-spetch, as it was called, with its one, two, three—heel and toe—cut and shuffle. And his strong voice, that was answered oftenest by the echo of the mountain cavern, was sometimes heard to troll out a snatch of a song at the village inn. But Ralph, though having an inclination to convivial pleasures, was naturally of a serious, even of a solemn temperament. He was a rude son of a rude country,—rude ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... who, sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat. Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me; He whose nervous paw can take My lady's lapdog by the neck, With furious hiss attack the hen, And snatch a chicken from ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... after her, his head slowly moving as his eye followed her. To anyone watching it would have been easy to read this pursuing glance, the look of the hunter on his quarry. David saw it and rose to his knees. A rifle lay within arm's reach, and for one furious moment he felt an impulse to snatch it and kill the man. But a rush of inhibiting instinct checked him. Had death or violence menaced her he could have done it, but without the incentive of the immediate horror he could never rise ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... the ship got clear of the ice, and now the crew were piped below to snatch a hasty meal, those only required to work the rudder and the pump gangs remaining on duty. Matters did not change much till the sun went down in a bank of dark clouds, its rays casting a ruddy glow across the western sky. As darkness came on, the wind increased, ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... will go this road to-morrow, and let you welcome him; settle down a wooden chair in the middle of the house; snatch the hat from him, and do not give him any ease until you get back the beautiful comb that was high on the back ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... was armed, and that the end might come at any moment. There was in the wronged husband's eyes the wild, reckless, unseeing thing which disregards consequences, which would rush blindly on the throne of God itself to snatch its vengeance. He spoke again: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... struggle, he stood a good chance of being torn to pieces. Providentially, Nostromo—invaluable fellow—with some Italian workmen, imported to work upon the National Central Railway, was at hand, and managed to snatch him away—for the time at least. Ultimately, Captain Mitchell succeeded in taking everybody off in his own gig to one of the Company's steamers—it was the Minerva—just then, as luck would have ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... he cried, endeavoring to snatch the work from my hands. In the struggle his hand came in contact with my bosom and he even touched the strawberry nipples surmounting the semiglobes. At last be conquered and obtained possession of the book. I looked imploringly ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... and mountaineers ("Allegri, beviami") as they are drinking and gambling in their mountain retreat. Ernani appears upon a neighboring height and announces himself in a despondent aria ("Come rugiada al cespite"). A brief snatch of chorus intervenes, when he breaks out in a second and more passionate strain ("Dell' esilio nel dolore"), in which he sings of his love for Elvira. The third scene opens in Elvira's apartments, and is introduced with one of the most beautiful of Verdi's arias, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... same time. One, therefore, he placed carefully upon the bank, and then passed over with the other in his arms. This effected, he laid it upon the ground, and returned immediately for the remaining child. But in the midst of the river, accidentally glancing his eye back, he beheld a wolf hastily snatch up the child, and run with it into an adjoining wood. Half maddened at a sight so truly afflicting, he turned to rescue it from the destruction with which it was threatened; but at that instant a huge lion approached the child he had left; and seizing it, presently disappeared. To follow ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... her own consent to such an arrangement, naturally I would have accepted my conge with a good grace, and gone away, a wiser as well as a sadder man; but as it was, and considering the importance for her future as well as my own, of a hasty explanation between us, I was ready to snatch at almost any expedient, not prejudicial to her, of obtaining a ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... as the ground choked with thorns, suffering the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches to choke and hinder the growth of heavenly life. Now, into good ground the seed had at last fallen; and though the evil one tried to snatch it away, its hidden life, moving to the earth's quick invitation, was already giving prophetic signs of thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold, in ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... The cow-boy counted out his money. The black-whiskered man wanted to chip in enough to make it even $10,000, but the cow-boy wouldn't have it. My friend made a snatch at what he supposed ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... expectation; for the expectation of bliss is perhaps even more gratifying than the reality. Thus the rose in its opening bloom, is sweeter than when its charms are expanded to the sight, for the hour of maturity is but the signal of decay. Alas! we eagerly follow the sparkling joy, snatch it with enthusiasm, and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... that all-daring spirit; nor, it may be safely said, can the whole library of human history present us a form of heroism superior in kind or degree to that which this illustrious advocate exhibited during nearly two years, when he went forth daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy hope to snatch some human victim from the clutch of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... fondly devoted to each other. To the crown prince, his father is in every sense of the word "William second to none;" while the kaiser himself is entirely wrapped up in his heir. For the last few years the emperor has given every spare moment that he could snatch away from his multifarious occupations to the task of instilling his ideas and views into the crown prince. In talking and reasoning with him, he has treated the lad as far older than his years, has discussed ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o'er the erring ones, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... same thing from her father's servants at New-Orleans, when I was there with my master. She brought with her from New-Orleans a girl named Frances. I have seen her take her by the ear, lead her up to the side of the room, and beat her head against it. At other times she would snatch off her slipper and strike the girl on her face and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... back as soon as we get things right at the ranch and maybe snatch an hour's rest. Depends on how much time we have. But we'll surely ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... the Valois was closely watched by the bold preachers of political emancipation. These were determined to snatch the royal prerogatives from him if he were unworthy of respect and squandered too much public money on his follies. It enraged them to hear that he spent hours on his own toilette, and starched his wife's fine ruffs as if he were ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... you and he would be happy, but because I wished to snatch my own soul from perdition. I think it is safe now—but oh, my God! it is like the souls of many other mortals—saved in spite of myself! Phyllis, you have been my salvation. You are a girl; you cannot understand how near a woman ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... with which she purposed to weave cambric delicate enough for kerchiefs and caps. As she spun, she sang as the birds sing, that is from the heart, and not from the score; and now it was a blithe chanson brought by her mother from her French home, and now it was a snatch of some Dutch folks-lied or some Flemish drinking-song, and again the rude melody of an old Huguenot hymn, the half devout, half defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands. But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... name was Vesalius. And the only way he could get to know anatomy as he did, was by going to snatch bodies at night, from ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... taught him to keep so still that he might be taken for a hump on a log. She taught him all that she knew. Bodo learned his lessons well. He always obeyed his mother. Sometimes he saw other Tree-dwellers. He had seen them snatch food from his mother's hand. He had seen them help her, too. But usually each Tree-dweller took care of himself. Bodo was learning to take care of himself. He was beginning to feel that he was almost a man. One day he caught a pig without any help. The next day his mother let ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp

... come on deck, instantly; don't stop to dress; snatch a shawl—anything. Lose not a moment. What is ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... news came that Mithridates had defeated Fabius,[417] and was marching against Sornatius and Triarius, through very shame the soldiers followed Lucullus. Triarius, being ambitious to snatch the victory which he thought was in his grasp, before Lucullus, who was near, should arrive, was defeated in a great battle. It is said that above seven thousand Romans fell, among whom were a ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long









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