"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his trips back from New York, though he had more land and slaves than he could use, stake his land and slaves—yes, and grandmother's too—on a card-game, and—lose, and change the whole face of the Brownley destiny—those same gambling microbes are in my blood, and when they begin to claw and gnaw I want to do something; and, Jim"—and the big brown eyes suddenly shot sparks—"if those microbes ever get unleashed, there'll be mischief to pay on ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... gravely, sitting down on a large flower-pot nearby, "I think, as we have been wanting to fight this out for some time,—indeed, I may say, almost since time began,—we had better allow every one to have a tooth and a claw in it. Then, perhaps, this matter ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... liked, the amiable giantess could rip up with her claw the tiny bandit who ruins her home; she could crunch her with her mandibles, run her through with her stiletto. She does nothing of the sort, but leaves the robber in peace, to sit quite close, motionless, with her red eyes fixed on the threshold of ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... softly to himself as he scratched his left ear with his hind claw, but no one was paying much attention to Quox ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... spittoons and new long pipes, Might turn a caravansery's, wherein You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk, And that fair Persian, bathed in tears, You'd not have given away For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous You had that dark and disleaved afternoon Escaped on a roc's claw, Disguised like Sindbad—but in Christmas beef! And all the blissful while The schoolboy satchel at your hip Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn From over Caspian: yea, the Chief Jewellers ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... river from which there came a piercing blast, seemed to them horrible and disgusting. They stepped slowly into the barge.... The Tartar and the three ferrymen took the long, broad-bladed oars, which in the dim light looked like a crab's claw, and Simeon flung himself with his belly against the tiller. And on the other side the voice kept on shouting, and a revolver was fired twice, for the man probably thought the ferrymen were asleep or ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... all, sir. I know a place, down in the Eastern States, that was called Scratch and Claw, and a ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... for you to learn first from the breast of the robin what a feather is. Once knowing that, thoroughly, we can further learn from the swallow what a wing is; from the chough what a beak is; and from the falcon what a claw is. ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... more tight and snug in this perilous world of the desperate and undeserving? Sard thought not. But one matter troubled him: the lock of the pantry door had been shattered. To remedy this he moused around until he discovered some long nails and a claw-hammer. When he was ready to go to sleep he'd nail himself in. And in the morning he'd pry the door loose. That was simple. Sard chuckled for the first time since he had set eyes upon the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... swirled round her breasts and gleamed green and slimy along her shoulders. A wild terror gripped her. Maybe she was riding the devil's horse, and these were the yawning gates of hell, black and sombre beneath the cold, dead radiance of the moon. She saw again the gnarled and black and claw-like fingers of Elspeth gripping and ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the same (of course fancy cutlets are meant, not the French chops, so called), only they are shaped to imitate a real cutlet, with a little bone inserted; or, in the case of lobster cutlets, a small claw is used to simulate the chop bone. Many only stick a sprig of parsley where the bone should be, ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... round-house, and slide down into the lee gangway, where, according to previous contract, you see a grim-looking seven-foot seaman—pick out the tallest—waiting for you with a couple of buckets of sea-water, one held ready in his claw, with a half-grin upon his puckered phiz as he inwardly blesses the simplicity of the landsman who turns out of his hammock in the morning-watch to be soused like the captain's turtle in cold salt water; and i' faith! startlingly cold it gets when on the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... always came down with immense force, and on several occasions proved destructive to itself, as the broken limbs of the table used at Kinsale could testify. The table was a round, rather heavy walnut one, with a central column standing on three claw legs. Mr. Armstrong says that on several occasions he succeeded in raising the table without contact. It rose to the fingers held over it at a height of several inches, like the keeper of a ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... eye fell on familiar objects; there was the claw-footed mahogany centre-table with antique carvings, her straight-backed old rocker, and "father's" dear arm-chair, both newly cushioned, and otherwise brightened up. The sofa, too, of ancient pattern, that had stood in her parlour at Hawthorn for forty ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... me, old girl, you want to cut out this picking away at Marion behind her back—or to her face, either, for that matter. You two women are going to see a good deal of each other between now and spring, and you'll be ready to claw each other's eyes out if you don't shut them to a lot you ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... evident that there was nothing like hostility in their minds. At the same time, the closer survey which I now made of them filled me with renewed horror; their meagre frames, small, watery, lack-lustre eyes, hollow, cavernous sockets, sunken cheeks, protruding teeth, claw-like fingers, and withered skins, all made them look more than ever like animated mummies, and I shrank from them involuntarily, as one shrinks from ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... of choice; but it is ridiculous to spend so many years on each experiment, as though there were no such thing as judging from samples. That device seems to me quite simple, and economical of time. There is a story that some sculptor, Phidias, I think, seeing a single claw, calculated from it the size of the lion, if it were modelled proportionally. So, if some one were to let you see a man's hand, keeping the rest of his body concealed, you would know at once that what was behind was a man, without seeing ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... crab fights," said Cousin Tom. "And sometimes two big crabs will fight so hard that one pulls a claw off the other. You have caught a fine, ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... slowly and reminiscently, "near's I c'n remember, he had on a blue broad-cloth claw-hammer coat with flat gilt buttons, an' a double-breasted plaid velvet vest, an' pearl-gray pants, strapped down over his boots, which was of shiny leather, an' a high pointed collar an' blue stock with a pin in it (I remember wonderin' if it ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... was, then?" said Mr. Starling, in a huff. "Here I have got a black eye, and a lame claw, and a sprained wing, and have lost two feathers out of my tail, all through your blunder. You ought to be ashamed ...
— The Nursery, December 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... 'ero's genius—and, I may say—er—I may say genius—that, unaided, 'it upon the only way for removing the cruel conqueror from our beloved 'earths and 'omes. It was this 'ero who, 'aving first allowed the invaders to claw each other to 'ash (if I may be permitted the expression) after the well-known precedent of the Kilkenny cats, thereupon firmly and without flinching, stepped bravely in with his fellow-'eros—need I say I allude to our gallant Boy Scouts?—and dexterously gave what-for in no uncertain ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... I run across that chap!" he reflected. "Vernon—John Vernon—yes, it's the same, no doubt about it. But he's only an artist, and I know what artists are. There's many on 'em, with claw-hammer coats and diamonds in their shirt-fronts, as hasn't got two quid to knock together. You won't suit my book, Mr. Vernon—you're not in the running against the others. It's a pity, though, for he was a real swell, what I call a gent. But I'll ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Prince rushed forward and made a powerful stroke at its neck; but the blow fell short, and cut off, instead, one of the Gigaboo's ten legs. Quick as lightning the monster put out a claw and nipped the Prince's arm which held the sword, cutting it from its body. As the sword fell the Prince caught it in his other hand and struck again; but the blow fell on the beast's shell, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... a big fallen nut—with the husk on, coco-nuts measure in the raw state about twelve inches the long way—he tears off all the coarse fibre bit by bit, and gets down at last to the hard shell. Then he hammers away with his heavy claw on the softest eye-hole till he has pounded an opening right through it. This done he twists round his body so as to turn his back upon the coco-nut he is operating upon (crabs are never famous either for good manners or gracefulness) and proceeds awkwardly ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... three common pipits—the tree-pipit (Anthus arboreus), the meadow-pipit (Anthus pratensis), and the rock-pipit or sea-lark (Anthus obscurus) have each occupied a distinct place in nature to which they have become specially adapted, as indicated by the different form and size of the hind toe and claw in each species. So, the stone-chat (Saxicola rubicola), the whin-chat (S. rubetra), and the wheat-ear (S. oenanthe) are more or less divergent forms of one type, with modifications in the shape of the wing, feet, and bill adapting them to slightly different modes of life. The ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... to discover. She proclaimed at once her discovery and her approval by screeching, "Boy! Boy! Oh, by Gee! Hullo!" and clambering head-first down the front of MacPhairrson's coat. As MacPhairrson hobbled hastily forward to admit the welcome guest, the parrot, reaching out with beak and claw, transferred herself to the moving crutch, whence she made a futile snap at one of the white cats. Foiled in this amiable attempt, she climbed hurriedly up the crutch again and resumed MacPhairrson's shoulder, in ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... steadily, almost with hostility, at the stranger, so curiously transfixed and isolated in her small old play-room. And in this scornful yet pleading confrontation her eye fell suddenly on the pin in his scarf—the claw and the pearl she had known all her life. From that her gaze flitted, like some wild demented thing's, over face, hair, hands, clothes, attitude, expression, and her heart stood still in an awful, inarticulate dread of the unknown. She turned slowly ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... qui les fait—les bons saints du paradis, peut-etre?" And Marianne and Lizette would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the poule sultane was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye saw the trouble—a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the noise in the court-yard. When madame ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... sends in middle of that dance, And I behold the countenance Of Michael, and can feel no more The bitter east wind biting sore My naked feet; can see no more The crayfish on the leaden floor, That mock with feeler and grim claw. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... windows bright and clear he saw The blessed going with their Lord to sup. But Satan clapped on his grudge a claw; Hell opened her ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... if astonishment were a new sensation to him, and he was determined to have the most of it. Meanwhile, little parrot taking advantage of his absence of mind, clambers up his breast and nips off a shirt-button, which he holds in his claw, pretending it is immensely good to eat. Hut-keeper clatters pots and pans, while yellow hair lies down whistling insolently. These last two seem inclined to constitute themselves his Majesty's Opposition in the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... recesses, and full of fears. One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter of pine wood. Suddenly he threw the piece of wood away, tottered to the rail, and fell over. Falk, too late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship's side desperately before he went down. Next day another man did the same thing, after uttering horrible imprecations. But this one somehow managed to get hold of the broken rudder chains and hung on there, silently. Falk set about trying to save ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... that is different from a weak and broken constitution. So a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is more serious. It is a radical defect which should prevent friendship. A small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle. The single claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature. According to the familiar saying, "We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether it is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient." So a single expression may tell us whether there is a want of ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... exclaimed the Russian. "But you shall fight like a gentleman for once in your life. I will not claw and scratch with you, like the women do, but with any weapon ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... contradictory, as to outweigh the evidence of a single witness, [The kind of contradiction which is here alluded to, is that which arises from well ascertained final causes; for instance, the ruminating stomach of the hoofed animals, is in no case combined with the claw-shaped form of the extremities, frequent in many of the carniverous animals, and necessary to some of them for the purpose of seizing their prey] it can only be regarded as a deception, without the ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... in the opinion of many, too little recognised by Wordsworth, and by Mysticism in general. This objection has been urged both from the scientific and from the religious side. It is held by many students of Nature that her laws affirm a Pessimism and not an Optimism. "Red in tooth and claw with ravine," she shrieks against the creed that her Maker is a God of love. The only morality which she inculcates is that of a tiger in the jungle, or at best that of a wolf-pack. "It is not strange (says Lotze) ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... exhausted. The bow plunged down, just missing me and sending a swash of water clear over my head. Then the long, black side of the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could have touched it with my hands. I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve to claw into the wood with my nails, but my arms were heavy and lifeless. Again I strove to call out, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a box containing balls of brown thread and twine, a large and small darning needle, rolls of waste-paper and old linen and cotton, and a supply of common holders. There should also be another box, containing a hammer, carpet-tacks, and nails of all sizes, a carpet-claw, screws and a screw-driver, pincers, gimlets of several sizes, a bed-screw, a small saw, two chisels, (one to use for buttonholes in broadcloth,) ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... pain. In Trenholme there was little vestige of that low type of will which we see in lobsters and in many wilful men, who go on clutching whatever they have clutched, whether it be useful or useless, till the claw is cut off. He had not realised that he had fallen from the height of his endeavours before he began to look about eagerly for something that he might sacrifice. But here he was met by the difficulty that proves that in the higher stages of human development ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, passing up the nave, turning from side to side a horse-like head, in front of it a big spectacled nose, bending his tall form all on one side, blessing the congregation with a long twisted hand, like a crab's claw. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... felt that the devil had him by the hair, as the saying is; he felt, too, that the hair was being twisted round the pitiless red claw. Startled and afraid lest he should sell his honesty for such a trifle, he answered the diabolical suggestion by another ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... The Potion of Lao-Tsze Abdallah the Adite Ananda the Miracle Worker The City of Philosophers The Demon Pope The Cupbearer The Wisdom of the Indians The Dumb Oracle Duke Virgil The Claw Alexander the Ratcatcher The Rewards of Industry Madam Lucifer The Talismans The Elixir of Life The Poet of Panopolis The Purple Head The Firefly Pan's Wand A Page from the Book of Folly The Bell of Saint Euschemon Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the luncheon had arrived, but were not in the least prepared for use. A large basket showed a quantity of live crabs, which lay quietly enough, but a twitching claw here and there ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... man, and got somewhat slow to move off. Biorn waxed very sleepy where he lay, and cannot wake up, and just at this time the beast betakes himself from his lair; now he sees where the man lies, and, hooking at him with his claw, he tears from him the shield and throws it down over the rocks. Biorn started up suddenly awake, takes to his legs and runs home, and it was a near thing that the beast gat him not. This his fellows knew, for they had spies about Biorn's ways; in the morning ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... mus tribe, comprising the mus ratus, or ordinary rat (so called from its haunting ordinaries, we suppose), and the timid mouse, with which the Bird of Wisdom is contented to put up when the sparrows decline to come to his claw. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... had been half woodshed and half workshop in Uncle Jeptha's time, and found a heavy claw-hammer, a pair of wire cutters, and a pocket full ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... dog or other enemy that ventures to attack him. In case of danger, he curls himself up into a ball, and defies any one to come near. Not only does he possess the coat of prickles with which he defends himself, but he also has a large perforated claw or spur on each hind foot through which pours an ill-smelling liquid, and these also aid in protecting him. There are several varieties of porcupines which inhabit Asia, Africa, Southern Europe ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... which should lead them to the river, and within a matter of yards, came across evidence proving that the merman had guessed correctly; a second claw print was pressed deep in a ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... must claw well to windward to escape us! What's your name, my lad—Tom Davis, if ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the man, warming with his faith, "have you never heerd, that the report of a cannon will make a lobster shake off his big, starboard claw?" ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... said he, "bestow on me the goblet." And Peredur drank the wine, and gave the goblet to the miller's wife. And while they were thus, behold there entered a black man, of larger stature than the other, with a wild beast's claw in his hand, wrought into the form of a goblet, and filled with wine. And he presented it to the Empress, and besought her to give it to no one but the man who would fight with him. "Lady," said Peredur, "bestow it on me." And she gave it to him. And Peredur ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Baltimore in recognition of his services in the defense of Fort McHenry against the British attack in 1814. The service includes an oval silver tray with a handle on each end, the whole of which is supported on six winged-claw feet. The tray is 29 inches ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... casting vote, and decide the matter. He took a long time to decide, about two hours; and while he was thinking, and the others were all intent to hear what he should say, down from the sky swooped a Kite; and the Kite stuck one claw into the Mouse's back, and one claw into the Frog, and carried them both away to his nest, and ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... years. The devil came to her first between sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, telling her that if she would serve him she would want nothing. After often solicitations she consented to him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into her hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant.' Now, as the writer gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be observed in that he did not press her to deny God and Christ, as he did others, because she was a professor, and he might have lost ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... patches of white; the ears are pretty large, and stand erect, the visage is pointed, the muzzle furnished with long slender hairs; the fore, as well as hind legs, from the knees downward, almost naked, and ash-coloured; on the fore feet are five claws, and on the hind, four and a thumb without a claw; the tail, for about an inch and an half from the root, covered with hairs of the same length as those on the body, from thence to the end with long ones not unlike that of a squirrel. The specimen from which the above account was taken, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... love to pluck the quills, With which I make pens, out of a lion's claw. The King! Should I be bitter 'gainst the King, I shall have scurvy ballads made of me, Sung to the hanging tune. I dare ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... leaves, in lateral, 2-3-flowered, slender-stemmed umbels; flowers about an inch broad, white when expanding, turning to pink; calyx 5-lobed, glandular; petals 5, obovate-oblong, contracting to a claw; stamens numerous; style 1, ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... armourial cognizance; [Hence the origin of Supporters] and horrible and laidly looked they in the guise of griffins, with artful scales of thin steel painted green, red forked tongues, and griping the banner in one huge claw, while, much to the marvel of the bystanders, they contrived to walk very statelily on the other. "Oh, the brave monsters!" exclaimed the butcher. "Cogs bones, this ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch, A tang of . . . well, it was not wholly ease As back into your mind the man's look came. Stricken in years a little—such a brow 50 His eyes had to live under!—clear as flint On either side the formidable nose Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw, Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? When altogether old B. disappeared And young C. got his mistress, was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all? What paid the Woodless man for so much pains? Our ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... the price agreed upon; here it is," he said, taking out a thick bundle of notes that occupied the whole inside of the poor, limp pocket-book; and as the old woman stretched out a skinny claw for them and began to slowly count them, he turned his gaze away, on to the upturned face of the girl watching ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... Lachlan's tuneful mavis, I sing on the branches early, And such my love of song, I sleep but half the night-tide rarely; No raven I, of greedy maw, no kite of bloody beak, No bird of devastating claw, but a woodland songster meek. I love the apple's infant bloom; my ancestry have fared For ages on the nourishment the orchard hath prepared: Their hey-day was the summer, their joy the summer's dawn, And their dancing-floor it was the green leaf's velvet lawn; Their song was the carol that defiance ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... spoke, we had come into proximity to our new game, a large and very powerful animal, about four feet high at the shoulders, and about six feet from the head to the root of the tail. The latter carries, as that of the lion was fabled to do, a final claw, not to lash the creature into rage, but for the more practical purpose of striking down an enemy endeavouring to approach it in flank or rear. Its hide, covered with a long beautifully soft fur, is striped alternately with brown ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... from Marl's height, And cried, astonished at the sight, "Whose fine estate is that there here?" "State! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur." "His? What the land and houses too? The fellow's richer than a Jew: On everything he lays his claw! I should like to ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... discovery by attempting to replace it, especially a thief in so great a hurry as to snatch the brooch up without unfastening the pin. The bird could pass through the opening as it was, and would have to tear the pin-cushion to pull the brooch off, probably holding the cushion down with its claw the while. ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... a scream of fright, for there was pussy in one flying leap on her bare head, scrabbling up her scanty hair, and with another away up the hillside leaving nothing but claw-marks behind her! ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... no enthusiastic or maternal greeting passed her lips. Her maids of honour and courtiers grouped about her murmured approbation and welcome as the heavy curtains fell aside, but frowning slightly she raised her bejewelled claw-like hand impatiently with a gesture commanding silence, darting hasty glances of displeasure upon those who had, by applauding, lowered her regal dignity. On either side black female slaves in garments of crimson silk and wearing golden girdles, massive earrings and neck chains, slowly fanned ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... and two quail, and two birds that seemed very like pheasants. One fell in impenetrable thorns, and we could not get nearer than about ten yards, and I missed another sitting. To restore my reputation with the Burmese boy, I had to claw down some high pigeons from untold heights on their way home to roost. After this, as I was loading, a partridge got up from some stubbly grass in a clearing, with an astonishingly familiar whirr, and went clear away, and I'd barely loaded when a Button quail whipped over some ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... his gold-headed cane in among your treasures, blind to the fact that you are clutching both arms around them, that no gleam of flashing gold may reveal their whereabouts to him. You draw yourself up in your shell, projecting a monosyllabic claw occasionally as a sign of continued vitality; but the pachyderm does not withdraw, and you gradually lower into ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... followed the cook, it is true; but I did not follow the cook as a rule—not, for instance, when she went out to the coal-hole in the yard. I had slipped in under her dress. I was behind the potato-tub when she went out, shutting the door after her. For some mysterious reason I felt on the tip-claw of expectation. My nose twitched with agreeable sensations. An inward voice seemed to murmur, Toots! Regardless of the draughts, I sprang on to the shelf close under the window. And there was such ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... talk there a language which I don't understand. You say that she was beautiful, and I suppose you know what you mean by the word. How then is a beautiful person to be degraded by anything the likes of you, or your fellow-dog, do to her? The thing's absurd. You can't claw her soul or blacken the edges of that. You can't sell that into prostitution or worse. That is her own, and it's that which makes her beautiful,—in spite of the precious pair of you, bickering and mauling each other to possess her. Possess her, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... whine beneath their loads, the raw-boned horses strain; A hundred sullen shovels claw and heave the sodden mass— There lifts no dust of scented moats, no cheery call of swain, Nor birds that pipe from border ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... vernacular, "making, culture hum." Mr. Fuller, I understand, reproached her with her stockyards—an injustice which even Mr. Bernard Shaw would scarcely have committed. Is it the fault of Chicago that the world is carnivorous? Was not "Nature red in tooth and claw" several aeons before Chicago was thought of? I do not understand that any unnecessary cruelty is practised in the stockyards; and apart from that, I fail to see that systematic slaughter of animals ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... "Does suffering entitle a man to be regarded as divine? If so, so also am I a God. Look at me!" He stretched out his long, thin arms with their claw-like hands, thrusting forward his great savage head that the bony, wizened throat seemed hardly strong enough to bear. "Wealth, honour, happiness: I had them once. I had wife, children and a home. Now I creep an outcast, keeping to the shadows, and the children in the street ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... him on the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the corner of the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before they scratch at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked in with the celerity of birds ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... like one under a spell, and at last was paralyzed with horror when a head actually appeared at one of the four openings—a small, dark head, with wild, tangled elf-locks hanging about it; next came a long, thin arm with a claw-like hand, then the shoulder followed, and finally the whole body of a slender, emaciated little girl wriggled dexterously, though with much difficulty, through the narrow aperture, and the child dropped down upon the floor as lightly and noiselessly as a feather, a snow-flake, or a waft of thistle-down. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... needn't go t' work an' git mad about it," remonstrated the Countess, dropping her thread in her perturbation at his excitement. The spool rolled under the bed and she was obliged to get down upon her knees and claw it back, and she jarred the bed and set Chip's foot to ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... said Ambrose, "I should feel only as if he," pointing to the phantom, "were at hand, clutching me with his deadly claw," and he looked over his shoulder ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said the man laughing. "I meant a sham tiger to fly at me and claw me. They would not know that it was not ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... black cat! hey, my pretty black cat! Go ye and sit on Goody Corey's breast, and claw her if she stirs. Do as I bid ye, my pretty black cat, and I'll ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... They carried a couple of hunting flasks filled with claret, and a couple of sandwich boxes, and that was all. Mary wore her substantial tailor-gown of olive tweed, and a little toque to match, with a silver mounted grouse-claw for her only ornament. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... apprehensively together, the door opened, just as the wind with renewed vigor beat down upon them once more. For a few moments a weird, bent figure, crutch in hand, stood in the doorway gasping for breath, her claw-like hands brushing away the leaves, which clung to her as if affrighted. The weight of years bore upon her so heavily that she scarcely had strength to close the door in the face of the riotous storm. As she stood panting and wheezing in the little parlor, into ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... tray and watched. The hungry wretches could never get over the delusion that sometime they could manage to get two rations of bread out of the tray. But in my experience that sometime never came. The club of the First Hall-man had a way of flashing out—quick as the stroke of a tiger's claw—to the hand that dared ambitiously. The First Hall-man was a good judge of distance, and he had smashed so many hands with that club that he had become infallible. He never missed, and he usually punished the offending convict by taking his one ration away from him and sending him to ...
— The Road • Jack London
... and blinked up uncertainly from under the sodden brim of his hat. His dirty claw-like hands clutched his coat together in an instinctive gesture of concealment. He seemed disturbed and even ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... short sleep, and now seemed the time to try to get free if ever. I got my left hand out of the bandages where I had hidden it, and began to claw at my chin to try to free it from the swathings that kept my mouth closed, but I could hardly get at them, so tightly were my elbows lashed behind my back, and it became plain that I must get them loose ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... of the royal waistcoat, flew to the king's ear, twittered, pointed out of the window with one claw, and, lying down on his back, pretended to be dead. Then he got up again, twittered afresh, pointed to the Wishing Cap, and, finally, convinced the king that this ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... am. I was loved and no longer am. I know not for what reason the Vineyard has lost its season." Her husband, who heard this, replied, "Vineyard thou wast, and Vineyard thou art: the Vineyard lost its season, for the lion's claw." The king, who understood what he meant, answered, "I entered the Vineyard; I touched the leaves; but I swear by my crown that I have not tasted the fruit." Then the steward understood that his wife was innocent, and the two made peace, and always ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... curves of her figure to charming advantage. Uncle Zeb, with characteristic leisure, was in no hurry to begin. He twisted the screws and thrummed the strings in a very wise manner. At length the instrument was tuned to his satisfaction, and then his claw-like fingers began to move with astonishing rapidity. I looked at Salome. She was standing perfectly still. Then, as the music quickened, I saw her supple body begin to sway, like a lily's stem when a zephyr breathes upon it. Her hands dropped to her sides, and daintily ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... venture out, unless with some rifles in company, for fear of another mischance. We have plenty of lynxes here; but I doubt if they would attack even a child, although they fight when assailed, and bite and claw severely." ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... I know; —squared-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Captain Brent's senior pilot. His skin hung on his face in folds, like that of a rhinoceros It was very much the same color. His grizzled hair was all lengths, like a worn-out mop; his hand reminded one of an eagle's claw, and his teeth were a pine yellow. He greeted only such people as he deemed worthy of notice, but he had held Virginia ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... turned up the collar of his threadbare claw-hammer coat and shuffled along over the frozen ground, scarcely noticing where his benumbed ...
— Grasshopper Green and the Meadow Mice • John Rae
... with which she was tormented a fortnight together, night and day. And several apparitions appeared to the deponent in the night. The first night, a humble-bee, the next night a bear, appeared, which grinned the teeth and shook the claw: 'Thou sayest thou art not afraid. Thou thinkest Harry Blazdall's house will save thee.' The deponent answered, 'I hope the Lord Jesus Christ will save me.' The apparition then spake: 'Thou sayst thou art not afraid ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... knocked the pistol away with one paw, while he stuck the claws of the other into the flesh of his antagonist, and rolled with him on the ground. Glass managed to reach his knife, and plunged it several times into the bear, while the latter, with tooth and claw, tore his flesh. At last, blinded with blood and exhaustion, the knife fell from the trapper's hand, and he became insensible. His companion, who thought his turn would come next, did not even think of reloading ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... tones; then their spokesman approached us, a man of polite bearing but ominously stern. He was not a clumsy fellow, but darkly forceful and direct, a man capable of a quick, desperate deed. At the moment there was the grim tiger in their eyes and from the soft paw the swift protrusion of the cruel claw. One thought of the wild revolutionary song, "Ca ca, ca ira, les aristocrats a la lanterne!" They were the children of the mob that had sung that song. With a bow, the spokesman said: "Messieurs, we think you are Germans and we wish ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Suddenly his eye fell on a package lying on an empty box, and he sprang towards it, tearing it open with claw-like fingers. ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... in that gravel; then like a fool I'd go back and dig for all I was worth. No chance of finding blue dirt down there! But I kept on. And to-day when my pick hit what felt like a soft rock—I looked and saw the gleam of gold!... You ought to have seen me claw out that nugget! I whooped and brought everybody around. The rest was a parade.... Now I'm embarrassed by riches. What to do ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... use; and I've got my family rose, and it's jest as dear to me as china and silver are to other folks. I ricollect after father died and the estate had to be divided up, and sister Mary and brother Joe and the rest of 'em was layin' claim to the claw-footed mahogany table and the old secretary and mother's cherry sideboard and such things as that, and brother Joe turned around and says to ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... his attack, The snout now stinging, now the back, And now the chambers of the nose; The pigmy fly no mercy shows. The lion's rage was at its height; His viewless foe now laugh'd outright, When on his battle-ground he saw, That every savage tooth and claw Had got its proper beauty By doing bloody duty; Himself, the hapless lion, tore his hide, And lash'd with sounding tail from side to side. Ah! bootless blow, and bite, and curse! He beat the harmless air, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Mitz, trying to claw something under the pillow case. "Mieu, mieu!" chimed in Mitz's sisters, while little Hannah trotted desperately, and the doll's cradle was rocked as ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... instrument presents a very graceful appearance; but fancy a Welsh Orpheus with a face all seamed and scarred by smallpox,—a short, fiery button in the middle of his countenance, serving for a nose,—a mouth awry and toothless,—and two long, dirty, bony hands, with claw-like fingers tipped with dark crescents,—and I do not think the picture will be a pleasant one. If the horrible-looking old fellow had concealed his ghastly eyes by colored glasses, the effect would not have been so disagreeable; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... nymph with wonder saw: A whisker first, and then a claw, 20 With many an ardent wish, She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize. What female heart can gold despise? What ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... so?" Captain Danny put out a hand like a bird's claw and hooked me by the cuff. "Wasn' there nothing in it about Execution Dock; nothing about ripe medlars—'medlars a-rottin' on the tree'? No?"—for I shook my head. "Well, then, I could be sworn I heard him singin' ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... ought to have give us a chancst to claw the hair outen that damned Corrigan feller!" complained Weaver. "In some ways, though, I'm sorta glad the damned mine was blew up. 'Firebrand' would have sure got a-hold of her some day, an' then we'd be clawin' at the bowels of the earth instid of galivantin' around on our cayuses ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... even the roughest wind or driving rain can tear them apart. Gray, coming in dirty and tired in the evening, after a long day's work in the hayfield or carting manure, was never too tired, nor for the matter of that too dirty, to take the baby, and let it dab its fat hands on his face, or claw at his grizzled whiskers or slobber ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... Killed an immense fellow: when standing on his hind legs fighting with me and the dogs, he was a foot higher than myself. He ran at me, and nearly gave me a desperate dig with his claw, which tore my only good hunting-shirt miserably. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... particular object towards which it is reaching out; for it will be understood that this thought-form, like that in Fig. 13, remains attached to the astral body, which must be supposed to be on the left of the picture. Claw-like forms of this nature are very frequently to be seen converging upon a woman who wears a new dress or bonnet, or some specially attractive article of jewellery. The thought-form may vary in colour according to the precise amount of envy or jealousy which is ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... tucked-up sleeves, and the great knives which they wear at their sides. They are licensed assassins, who track our steps without pity and cut our throats without giving us time to cry mercy. And now, my child," she added, raising her claw, "receive my blessing. May St. James, the patron saint of pilgrims, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... apply a morall medicine, to a mortifying mischiefe: I cannot hide what I am: I must bee sad when I haue cause, and smile at no mans iests, eat when I haue stomacke, and wait for no mans leisure: sleepe when I am drowsie, and tend on no mans businesse, laugh when I am merry, and claw no ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... that the figure of his chum, now lying prostrate on the floor of the cavern with the head extending outward, was being drawn away from him by the claw which ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... had turned sicklier and uglier as his friend had continued to speak. He looked now as if he would like to pounce upon me with his claw-like fingers. He was evidently between the desire to question me outright as to whether anything had passed between me and the Countess, and the dislike of showing openly to a stranger any suspicion of his wife. The latter feeling prevailed, and ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... there wanted not a touch, A tang of ... well, it was not wholly ease As back into your mind the man's look came. Stricken in years a little,—such a brow His eyes had to live under!—clear as flint On either side the formidable nose Curved, cut and coloured like an eagle's claw. Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? When altogether old B. disappeared And young C. got his mistress,—was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all? What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? Our Lord the King has favourites manifold, And shifts his ministry ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... Fox—with glee that grins, And apish arms, with fingers claw'd, To snatch at all his brother wins, And straight secrete, with stealth and fraud;— Lo! Mammon, kindred Demon, comes, And lurks, as dreading ill, in rear; He blows the trumpet, beats the drums, Inflames the torch, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... brown: Kellaart); beneath a paler shade; a white triangular spot on forehead, extending down the nose; fur short, dense, and soft; ears thin, rounded (Jerdon). A hooped claw on inner toes; nails of other toes flat; posterior third of palms and soles ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... of. By the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... with its lid undistinguishable from the soil and moving on a hinge, than is the Clotho in her tent, which is inviolable by any enemy ignorant of the device. The Clotho, when in danger, runs quickly home; she opens the chink with a touch of her claw, enters and disappears. The door closes of itself and is supplied, in case of need, with a lock consisting of a few threads. No burglar, led astray by the multiplicity of arches, one and all alike, will ever discover how ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... lurched and the front of it dipped with a violence that drove Vaniman and Britt against the end. Up came the front and the rear sagged. Then the van went bumping and swaying over uneven ground. The claw-clash of the branches of trees against the sides informed Vaniman that the men ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... "half apes," including the lemurs, are nearly all arboreal forms. Perhaps they were driven to this life by their more powerful competitors. The arboreal life developed the fingers and toes, and most of these end, not with a claw, but with a nail. The little group has much diversity of structure, and at present finds its home mainly in Madagascar; though in earlier times apparently occurring all over the globe. The brain is more highly developed than in the average mammal, but far inferior to that of the apes. They have ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... The brown claw of the old hunter was never far from the grip of his gun when he lay before a campfire. Jack saw the hand clamp upon the weapon ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... things are forbidden to be sold to idolaters—fir-cones, and the best figs, with their clusters, and incense, and the white cock. R. Judah said, "it is allowable to sell a white cock among many others. But when a man has only one, he must cut its claw before he sell it, since the heathen do not offer that which is blemished in idol worship." And all other things for ordinary uses are allowed—but if they be declared to be for idolatry, they are forbidden. R. Meier said, "even the fine dates, and the date sap,(440) and the Jericho ...
— Hebrew Literature
... brought up the crayfish, which had only one claw, and Juno put on another pot of water to boil it, as an addition to the dinner, which was nearly ready. Tommy at first went with his sister Caroline to look at the animal, and as soon as he had left off admiring it, he began, as usual, to tease it; first he poked its ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... around in a circle, snapping his whip at each flourish, and calling the name of some animal. The players in the circle immediately imitate the animal, both as to its movements and cries. For instance, for a bear they claw or run on "all fours," or climb and at the same time growl; for a frog they may hop or swim and croak. The list may include the hopping kangaroo, the snarling and springing tiger, the humped and swaying camel, the balking and braying donkey, ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... meals is a paulopost-meridian breakfast. The rosiness of the combs of these strapping hens is good augury;—hark, a cackle from the barn—another egg is laid—and chanticleer, stretching himself up on claw-tip, and clapping his wings of the bonny beaten gold, crows aloud to his sultana till the welkin rings. "Turn to the left, sir, if you please," quoth a comely matron; and we find ourselves snugly seated ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson |
