"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... oh! yet, thyself deceive not: Love may sink by slow decay; But, by sudden wrench, believe not Hearts can thus be ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... happen," declared that worthy, as he picked up a monkey wrench, the only weapon at hand, and started off ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... unending period he occupied himself with endeavoring to obtain the sense of balance. Then, with a great effort, he managed to loosen the cords that bound his right arm to his side. A mighty wrench, and he had slipped them up above his elbow. His ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... waving and creaking and jostling in the wind. Each year the ropes decay, and soon the repulsive pendants will be gone. Not so with the iron belaying-pins, a few of which still stand around the mast, so rusted into the iron fife-rail that even the persevering industry of the children cannot wrench them out. It seems as if some guilty stain must cling to their sides, and hold them in. By one of those fitnesses which fortune often adjusts, but which seem incredible in art, the wharf is now used on ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... coming. He paused for neither path nor way but went straight for the school, running in mighty strides, yet gently, listening to the moans that struck death upon his heart. Once he fell headlong, but with a great wrench held her from harm, and minded not the pain that shot through his ribs. The yellow sunshine beat fiercely around and upon him, as he stumbled into the highway, lurched across the mud-strewn road, and ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... endeavored to wrench away his arm, a band of steel would have been as flexible; but St. Elmo's voice hardened, and Edna felt his heart throb fiercely against her cheek ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... note. "Kill him." "Hang him up by the heels and stone him." "Twist off his tongue," and so forth. Out shot a hand, a long, skinny, female hand, and a harsh voice cried, "Give us a keepsake, my pretty boy!" Then there was a sharp wrench at his head, and he knew that from it a lock of hair was missing. This was too much. He ought to have stopped there and let them kill him if they would, but a terror of these human wolves entered his soul and mastered him. To be trodden beneath those ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... waiting for further developments. I clung to Mrs. Delaney like my own mother, not knowing what to do. The cause of the stampede we were told was that they had heard the report of a gun. That report was fortunate for us, as it was the intention of the Indians to wrench us from our half-breed ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... influenced by a sentence he had read somewhere about "one of those globe-trotters you meet carrying a monkey-wrench in Calcutta, then in raiment and a monocle at the Athenaeum." He would learn some Kiplingy trade that would teach him the use of astonishingly technical tools, also daring and the location of smugglers' haunts, copra islands, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... you will break it," said Kenneth, quietly, as she gave it a twist and a wrench. And he put out his hand, and took it from hers, and drew gently upward in the line in which ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... distant one—out of the buzz of the gossip of her native neighbourhood—as the best thing that could have happened. But when it came to the point of sending her forth to battle with her fate alone for the rest of her life, the wrench was dreadful. She was the bravest of them all under the ordeal. The shattered father, whose right hand she had been for so many happy years, and whose heart was broken with the weight of his responsibility for her misfortunes, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... apt to scare off those who lack perseverance and who fail to understand that there must be something admirable in that which was once much admired by the judicious. He shares with Thackeray the sinful habit of pulling up his readers with a wrench by reminding them that what is set before them is after all mere fiction and that the characters in whose fates they are becoming interested are only marionettes. With Dickens and others he shares ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... few minutes slight tappings came from within, as if a wrench or a screwdriver were being used. Then the tappings stopped, and ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... in amazement, and almost in terror, the frantic woman drew from her bosom a long knife, and inflicted a deep wound upon him before he could wrench it from her determined grasp. The knife had penetrated to the rib, but not farther, having glanced off to the side. As the blood spread rapidly over his hunting-shirt, the maniac gave a wild laugh, and repeated in the same ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... under the examination of the nearest practitioner, and then Derrick remembered a wrench and shock which he had felt in Lowrie's last desperate effort to recover himself. Some of the small ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and keeping it, Casey managed very well. Whenever anything went wrong that his vocabulary and a monkey wrench could not mend, Casey sat down on the shadiest running board and conned the Instruction Book which Bill handed him at the last minute. Other times he treated the Ford exactly as he would treat a burro, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... tidings reached Monkshade that Lady Glencora was not to be expected, Burgo Fitzgerald was already there, armed with such pecuniary assistance as George Vavasor had been able to wrench out of the hands of Mr Magruin. "Burgo," said his aunt, catching him one morning near his bedroom door as he was about to go down-stairs in hunting trim, "Burgo, your old flame, Lady Glencora, is not ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... unnerved. This man's stupidity would exasperate him. He would never come across any but subjects of irritation or disheartenment. He felt inclined to seek a quarrel with some one. He would have liked to wrench Marianne's ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Fleurette would smile and tell him the wondrous news, and would put into his hands an unstamped letter to post, which he, with a wrench of the heart, would add to the collection ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... schabraques all complete. Then I would work like a madman, until my iron was crusted with blood, as if with rust. And so, night by night, I loosened that stony plaster, and hid it away in the stuffing of my pillow, until the hour came when the iron shook; and then with one good wrench it came off in my hand, and my first step had been made ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... returned to their allotted task, and his reeking pipe did its duty with hearty goodwill. There was the sound of strident voices in the outer room, and the rattle of the door handle turning with a wrench. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... action came so unexpectedly that for the instant Jack did not know what to do. Then, however, he tried to wrench himself free from the oil well ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... a foreign man who worked at the selfsame bench, "Let me tell you this," and for emphasis he flourished a Stilson wrench; "Don't talk to me of the bourjoissee, don't open your mouth to speak Of your socialists or your anarchists, don't mention the bolsheveek, For I've had enough of this foreign stuff, I'm sick as a man can be Of the speech of hate, and I'm tellin' you straight ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... from their alarm and bethinking themselves of pursuit of the outlaws, the helpless victims proceeded to push into camp to arouse the miners. It was then that Barclay discovered that the tire of one of the front wheels had come off in the jolt and wrench caused by the frightened horses. As no time was to be lost, Barclay suggested that somebody run down the road to Woppit's cabin and telephone to camp. Mr. Mills and the Chicago drummer undertook this errand. After considerable parley—for Miss Woppit wisely insisted upon being convinced of her ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... his eyes, slow an' very slow, an' he looked at her long an' very long, an' he tuk his spache betune his teeth wid a wrench that shuk him. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... have thought so, perhaps, just as I did, but I learned that these affections of ours are deeper than we suspect. I believed I had dropped you forever, but time has taught me what a terrible wrench it must be that would tear the image of John Craig from ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... Sinks the moon was rising full and into a clear sky. To the right twinkled the lights of Glen Tarn, and below them yawned the unspeakable wrench in the granite shoulders of the Pilot range called Devil's Gap. Out of its appalling darkness projected miles of silvered spurs tipped like grinning teeth by the light of ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... method nor guidance; for the Pole displays a variability resembling that of the winds which blow across that vast plain broken with swamps; and though he has the impetuosity of the snow squalls that wrench and sweep away buildings, like those aerial avalanches he is lost in the first pool and melts into water. Man always assimilates something from the surroundings in which he lives. Perpetually at strife with the Turk, the Pole ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... this last movement, however, and he picked up Gum roughly, and proceeded to wrench open its jaws. He felt all round his mouth, but the nugget was not there. He held the senseless body up by the tail and shook it, but no gold appeared. He took his head between his knees, and sounded all over its throat, but the nugget was not to be found. ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... in which she had had a revisionary interest. These subtleties naturally were beyond the experience of Skippy, in fact he was quite unable to reason on anything. His heart was swollen to twice its natural size, his pulse was racing, and the next moment with the wrench of the farewell, he felt in a numb despair, the light go out of the day, and a vast sinking weight rushing him down into ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... to prove the final wrench to a heart that had been on the verge of breaking for many a year, and it was not long before Olive and Cyril ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Mahommed's ears endured a wrench, and for a time he heard nothing; but he was too intent following the flight of the ball to mind whether the report of the gun died on the heights of Galata or across the Bosphorus at Scutari. He saw the blackened sphere pass between the towers flanking ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... "A bed-wrench, Aaron. It's to take apart corded beds so as to get them out of houses that are on fire. There aren't hardly any corded beds now, of course, but it's a very old association that you're foreman of, and the members keep the old things. It's awfully nice to do ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... now growing old—put his hands behind his back and said nothing, but went on with his usual routine of work. Whether he had become dulled and deadened and cared nothing, whether hope was extinct, or he could not wrench himself from the old place, he said nothing. Even then some further time elapsed—so slow is the farmer's fall that he might almost be excused for thinking that it would never come. But now came the news ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... that has been discarded is used in making this vise. The wrench is supported by two L-shaped pieces of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... up the large man as if he were a baby, he carried him to the scaffold and handed him up to Tom Larkin, who fitted the noose around his neck and sprang down. The supports had not been set with the same delicacy as at first, and Limber Jim had to set his heel and wrench desperately at them before he could force them out. Then "Mosby" passed away ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... car, Andy Foger?" asked Tom calmly as he recognized his squint-eyed rival. "I was just beginning to think it was. Allow me to return your wrench," and he held out the one he had picked up near the log. "The next time you drag trees across the road," went on the lad in the tonneau, facing the angry and dismayed Andy, "I'd advise you to post a notice at the top of the hill, ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... not be afraid to commit acts for which you might be blamed directly, so long as you do so rarely, and as long as you have a plausible excuse: you dropped your wrench across an electric circuit because an air raid had kept you up the night before and you were half-dozing at work. Always be profuse in your apologies. Frequently you can "get away" with such acts under the cover of pretending stupidity, ignorance, over-caution, fear of being suspected ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... history of the accident should be investigated, attention being paid to the nature of the violence—whether a blow, a twist, a wrench, or a crush, and whether the violence was directly or indirectly applied. The degree of the violence may often be judged approximately from the instrument inflicting it—whether, for example, a fist, a stick, a cart wheel, or a piece of heavy machinery. The position of the limb at the time ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... awake from dreaming of his home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about the people of old time. One by one the other ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... plunged into a world of perfect strangers. Everything is done to make them at ease and comfortable in their new surroundings; the headmaster is kindness itself, the matron beams on them with smiles and fortifies them with encouragement; but just at first the wrench for the little fellows is great. In a day or two, however, they will begin to acclimatise themselves; the strangeness will begin to wear off; and having borne up bravely against their first sense of loneliness in the midst of a crowd they will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... monkey wrench, pliers, hammers and screwdriver, he set about making himself as busy as any of the others—and ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... Yvette Hinchbrooke wrench free from Homer and run down the aisle to snatch the child from ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... eyes for the boat down there. Then she sprang up, and tore down her black locks, and bound them round his feet, so that he had to wrench them off before he could ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... servants of force say that it is like "a cur barking at the wheels of an express-train." Yes, if man were only a fragment of matter writhing in vain beneath the hammer of fate; but there is a spirit within him which knows how to smite Achilles on his heel, and Goliath in his forehead. Let him but wrench off a nut, the swift train is overturned, its course stayed. Planetary swirls, obscure masses of human-kind, roll down through the ages lighted by flashes of the liberating Spirit: Buddha, the Sages, Jesus—all breakers of chains! I can see the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... said as I saw his eyes wander about the table, "that you feel exactly like an oyster-man who's just chipped his Blue-Point and got his knife-edge in under the shell! And the next wrench is going to tell you exactly what sort of an ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... heroics with Hosmer. In saddling his horse rather hastily he was as unmoved as though preparing for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Gregoire rode up as if pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench that set it ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... this frame of mine was wrench'd With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale, And then it set ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... flinging down his wrench and passing his hand through a mop of curly hair; "what time ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... rested give a great crack, and with a violent start he made a spring for one of the lower branches. The motion caused his whole weight to rest for an instant on his arms;—unable to sustain the wrench, the heather gave way, and with a wild shriek he fell headlong down ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... had begun, the words came with fierce swiftness. He seemed to mean them to sting, to cut, to stab. It was hard not to cry out with the pain of hearing them. All that I understood was that he meant to wrench himself from me with a force that should make the breach impassable. This I felt, though still his eyes gave the lie to his words; his eyes that said I was dear ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... loneliness and desolation, and though his heart ached for the old nearness he could not put out his hand to her nor take a step toward her. In himself, in her, was the change, or the mere fate, that held them parted. The wrench had come slowly upon them, but, while he ached with the pain of it, he could already look upon it as accomplished. Only one question remained to be asked:—Would nothing, no change, no fate, draw them ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... dull and flushed, and his eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst into a heartbreak ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... lot quite as much as, if not more than, the evangelicalism of Sir Thomas and Lady Royden. Moreover, she was too much in love with life to give her mind very seriously to the difficulties of theology. Even with a body which had to wrench itself along, one could swim and row, read ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... the distance was so short, and I feared that he might wrench one of his hands loose. Moreover, I thought that you might prefer his being searched ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... mawnin' he overslep' hisse'f, en got inter mo' trouble. Atter breakfus', Mars' Dugal' sont 'im ober ter Mars' Marrabo Utley's fer ter borry a monkey wrench. He oughter be'n back in ha'f an hour, but he come pokin' home 'bout dinner'time wid a screw-driver stidder a monkey wrench. Mars' Dugal' sont ernudder nigger back wid de screw-driver, en Hannibal didn' git no dinner. 'Long in de atternoon, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... he knew that I should never Endure, if life should ever take that form. As little as himself would e'er have borne it A single hour, for he but made a show, Acquaint with me, and knowing it would cost The less of pain to wrench my heart from him, So soon as I had come to ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... journey, when the wrench from our old home was once made. We did not even leave Clarence behind, for Mr. Castleford had given him a holiday, so that he might not appear to be kept at a distance, as if under a cloud, and might ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in like a flood, Allied with foes of our own flesh and blood, The elements of earth and hell combine, Yet tho' he trembles, stands in strength divine; He rests secure on the unyielding rock. The top may sway, but base feels not the shock; His heart is fixed, nor earth nor hell can move; They wrench not loose, but his allegiance prove. Christ wept with Mary at her brother's grave; Laid down His life a rebel world to save; Tried, like ourselves, and like us too, infirm, Yet knew no sin in either root or germ; Let us be like Him while we sojourn here, Then storms ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... father's soul. They come nearer, and she smiles to him; but, oh! there is a light in her face, a gladness shining in her eyes, a tremulous sweetness about the mouth. Did he read all this in her mother's face years and years ago? Did her mother have this awful pang that seems to wrench body and soul asunder? ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the shine of the warrior's sword, The soldier paused beside it: He wrench'd the hand with a giant's strength, But the grasp of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... and held it against the gray metal ground. The Frenchman swung, his hammer noiseless as it drove the tough spike. A few inches into the metal was enough. Bradshaw took a wrench from his belt, put it on the head of the spike, and turned it. Below the surface, teeth on the spike bit into the metal. It ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... filed up to shape and then hardened at home. By lightly tapping in the taper cotter pin little by little, sufficient pressure is put on the cutter to make it an easy matter to completely re-face an old seat or form a new one. A T-wrench or "tommy" can be used to work the cutter spindle. The lower part of the latter must be the same diameter as the existing valve spindle; the bush acts as a guide; and as the bevel of the cutter should be the same as that of the valve, a very little grinding in with emery powder is required ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... warfare and take up arms, instead, against the infidel. "Christ Himself," he cried, "will be your leader, when, like the Israelites of old, you fight for Jerusalem.... Start upon the way to the Holy Sepulcher; wrench the land from the accursed race, and subdue it yourselves. Thus shall you spoil your foes of their wealth and return home victorious, or, purpled with your own blood, receive ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... off savagely, hunting it. He came back and dived into the cockpit of the plane. He came out with a wrench, and his jaws set grimly. He worked desperately at the pump. He came back ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... blunderbuss answered back The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack, And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring, And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise, And over the smoke of the fusillade The Peacock ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to his feet and with the same implacable hatred gleaming in his eyes came on toward them, still grasping the awful weapon. Then, as Matak stepped out to meet him, armed only with a hub wrench, Terry's right hand extended in swift gesture as he shot once. The Moro collapsed to the road, limply, like a ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... passions grow with usage, and Jennie was not only a comfort, but an appetite, with him. Almost four years of constant association had taught him so much about her and himself that he was not prepared to let go easily or quickly. It was too much of a wrench. He could think of it bustling about the work of a great organization during the daytime, but when night came it was a different matter. He could be lonely, too, he discovered much to his surprise, and it ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... an allusion, vague and delicate in itself, to the eventful conversation with Waife in reference to Sophy—a sombre, solemn farewell conveyed to her and to hope—a passionate prayer for her happiness—and then an abrupt wrench, as it were, away from a subject too intolerably painful to prolong—an intimation that he had succeeded in exchanging into a regiment very shortly to be sent into active service; that he should set out the next day to join that regiment in a distant part of the country; and that he trusted, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... knobs on the bark of the tree. At Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, there used to be certain oak-trees which were long celebrated for the cure of ague. The transference of the malady to the tree was simple but painful. A lock of the sufferer's hair was pegged into an oak; then by a sudden wrench he left his hair and his ague behind him in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... I was touched, my lady. I see, my lady, that to part from her would be a wrench to me, though I could not well say so in her presence, not having yet decided how far I shall ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... the unwholesomeness of the climate of Fernando Po, Mrs. Burton was, of course, unable to accompany him. They separated at Liverpool, 24th August 1861. An embrace, "a heart wrench;" and then a wave of the handkerchief, while "the Blackbird" African steam ship fussed its way out of the Mersey, having on board the British scape-goat sent away—"by the hand of a fit man"—one "Captain English"—into the wilderness of Fernando Po. "Unhappily," commented ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... decided that in common decency he should offer to lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew by the impersonal ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... had not even fixed bayonets. Desperate was the hand-to-hand fighting, and valor more conspicuous than that of the Ghazis was never shown. Furiously they threw themselves upon the line of their opponents; clutching their muskets and trying to wrench them from their hands, while they strove to cut down their holders. Many of them threw themselves upon the fixed bayonets, and died in the endeavor to cut down the soldiers with their swords; but the three ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... call up various faces and wonder if this were not the first time. All the faces seemed to dim before this present one. He realized something in her very dear and precious, and for the first time he felt as if he could not forego possession. Hitherto it had been easy enough to bear the slight wrench of leaving temptation and moving his tent. Here it was different. Still, the old objection remained. How could he marry upon ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sort of obliquity or distortion, as wry, to wreathe, wrest, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrinch, wrench, wrangle, wrinkle, wrath, wreak, wrack, wretch, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... Under the agony of the blow he gave a muffled cry, and almost instinctively grasped the shaft of the weapon with both hands. Had the Earl let go his end of the weapon, he would have won the battle at his leisure and most easily; as it was, he struggled violently to wrench the gisarm away from Myles. In that short, fierce struggle Myles was dragged to his knees, and then, still holding the weapon with one hand, he clutched the trappings of the Earl's horse with the other. The next moment he was upon his feet. The other struggled to thrust him away, but ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... being also flatly, unchangeably natural. She had longed—oh, how she had longed!—to be back here. Even while loving and working in her so-called home, she had felt that this was her real home, although here her cruelest blows had fallen on her; even while bleeding with the wrench of parting from her own flesh and blood, she had felt that this was the real home, for here she had really lived; and it was the home of the nicer, more delicate instincts. After the crude housekeeping, the lack of comforts that made the simplest nursing a grinding struggle with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... exaltation; whether their seat at the head of a sun-steeped marsh (at whose mouth is Venice) hath itself unseated them; whether Petrarch set boiling what Saint Antony could not allay; what it was, how it was, who gave them the wrench, I know not—but the fact is that the people of Padua have been as freakish a race as any in Italy; at the mercy of any head but the aggregate's, pack-mules of a notion, galley-slaves of a whim, driven hither and thither in a herd, like those restless leaves ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... abstraction, gazing at the ceiling when extra-odorous dishes were placed in front of us. The Radcliffe girls said that they had passed a strenuous night, engaged in wild manoeuvres to obtain possession of the monkey wrench and feloniously to secrete the same. Their collegiate training had included instruction on the hygienic virtues of fresh air, which made no allowance for a sea trip; and their views as to the practical application of these principles ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Run thou to Count Guy; he is hard at hand. Tell him what hath crept into our creel, and he will fee thee as freely as he will wrench this outlander's ransom out of him—and why not? for what right had he to get himself wrecked on another ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... oh yet thyself deceive not: Love may sink by slow decay, But by sudden wrench believe not Hearts can thus ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... lamentably that she realized that the hide would yield before the mud would. The attempt had taken time, however; and the tide was now well up in the fur of his back. Thrusting her paw down beneath his haunches, she tore him clear with a mighty wrench and a loud sucking of the baffled mud. That stroke sent him head over heels some ten feet nearer safety. By the time he had picked himself up, pawing fretfully at the mud that bedaubed his face and half blinded him, his mother was close behind him, nosing him ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... go. He laughed at her; then suddenly her face flamed with a passion he was unprepared for, and her eyes danced with strange lights. Few words were spoken, only a few ejaculatory phrases such as "How dare you?" "Let me go!" she said, as she strove to wrench her arms from his grasp. She caught up one of the glasses; but before she could throw it Mike seized her hand; he could not take it from her, and unconscious of danger (for if the glass broke both would be cut to the bone), she clenched it with a force that seemed impossible ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the most amazing duels ever fought. Miellyn would make some tiny movement, and we would be falling, blind and dizzy, through blackness. Halfway through the giddiness, a new direction would wrench us and we would be thrust elsewhere, and look out into ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... preferable, inasmuch as it shows the width across the flats, which is the dimension that is worked to, because it is where the wrench fits, and therefore of most importance; whereas the latter gives the length of a flat, which is not worked to, except incidentally, as it were. There is the objection to the view of the head, given in Figure 156, however, that unless it is accompanied ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... Tataka!—an elephant was captured for a time by the king's hunters and ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous legiron. This he strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his heart, and hurrying up and down the forests, besought his brother-elephants to wrench it asunder. One by one, with their strong trunks, they tried and failed. At the last they gave it as their opinion that the ring was not to be broken by any bestial power. And in a thicket, new-born, wet with moisture of birth, lay a day-old calf of the herd whose mother had ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... filling with folk who seemed to spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head on Fleete's breast before we could wrench him away. Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the crowd blocked ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... as we had the Carmelo in tow, we instantly called out to the people on board her, who threw him over several ends of ropes, one of which he fortunately caught hold of, and twisting it round his arm, was hauled into the ship, without having received any other injury than a wrench in his arm, of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... I say, let every scullion-wench Grieve, nor the dairy-maid from sobs refrain; The sad postmistress, too, should feel the wrench, And the lone tweeny of her loss complain; Let one—let all afflict the listening spheres: Deplore, ye maids, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... he answered, "and her heart; yes, and my own would be none the better for the wrench; yet how can we turn this evil from ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... Nay, he even made a convert of Alison herself! She did believe that would Ermine but think it right to consent, she would be happy and safe in the care of one who knew so well how to love her. Terrible as the wrench would be to Alison herself, she thought he deserved her sister, and that she would be as happy with him as earth could make her. But she did not believe Ermine would ever accept him. She knew the strong, unvarying resolution by which her sister had always held to what she thought ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rolled sideways. His mind still running in the groove of his set purpose, before his captor's relaxed fingers had well loosed their grip, Macalister hurled himself across the trench and fastened his ferocious grip on the body of the officer. He rose to his feet, lifting the man with a jerking wrench, and swung him round. The swift idea had come to him that by hurling the officer's body on top of the bomb, and holding him there, he would at least make sure of his vengeance, might even escape himself the fragments and full force of the shock. Even in the midst of the swing he checked, ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... melancholy and doubt, will all vanish. But the devil is artful, and does not readily permit you to come to this, and so assaults you in order to take the sword out of your hand; if he can make you full, so that your body is unguarded and inclined to wantonness, then will he quickly wrench the sword from your grasp. Thus He served Eve: she had God's word; if she had continued to depend on it she would not have fallen, but when the devil saw that she held the word so loosely, he tore it from her heart, so that she let it go ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... "It is naturally a wrench to us," Lord Ashleigh confessed, "especially as circumstances which you already know of prevent either your mother or myself from being with you during the first few months of your stay there. You have very many friends in New York, however, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the cart, from whence it was instantly drawn forth again by the enraged landlord. This game was carried on for some time, each as determined as the other, grasping; snatching, and pulling this unfortunate piece of furniture until one wrench, stronger than the former, entirely dislocated its component parts, and laid it in a ruined heap upon the ground. This was the moment for the tenant to show himself a man of spirit. Taking advantage ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... man," he often thought, "I would wrench the stick from his hand, and give him a chance ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... from some moving picture, a scene rose before Clodagh's eyes. She saw herself at grips with O'Reilly. She saw him wrench the envelope from her hands as she resisted. She saw herself sobbing over her failure and Angel's lost hopes. That picture mustn't come true! The key attached to the watch-chain, she had removed from the safe door, and ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... murderers hung. Once I was helper to the hangman, that I might hear and know what the man said, what he felt. When the arms were bound, I felt the straps on my own; when the cap come down, I gasp for breath; when the bolt is shot, I feel the wrench and the choke, and shudder go through myself—feel the world jerk out in the dark. When the body is bundled in the pit, I see myself lie still under the quick-lime with the red mark round ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... prepared a wrench for yourself, old fellow, but you will never be the worse for it, Lawrence. You know all about that better than I ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... only a violent action could dispel. If the mysterious sounds came neither from the street to the right, nor from the street to the left, they could come only from the church. Half-maddened, I rushed up the two or three steps, and prepared to wrench the door open with a tremendous effort. To my amazement, it opened with the greatest ease. I entered, and the sounds of the litany met me louder than before, as I paused a moment between the outer door and the heavy leathern curtain. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the Monkey Wrench Of Stately Doctor Key; "No!" replied that haughty soul. "No Monkey-shines ...
— Fun and Nonsense • Willard Bonte
... few are seen like skeletons. With painful effort they struggle from the soil that clasps them round, as if obeying an irresistible command. Some have their heads alone above the ground. Others wrench their limbs from the clinging earth; and as each man rises, it closes under him. One would think that they were being born again from solid clay, and growing into form with labour. The fully risen spirits stand and walk about, all occupied with the expectation of the Judgment; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... plants at a time as required, cut or wrench off the foliage, and pack the roots, crown upwards, in boxes with moist leaf-mould or soil. They must be stored in absolute darkness in some cellar or Mushroom-house which is safe from frost, but a forcing temperature is detrimental to the flavour. Gathering ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... throw them off and wrench himself free, but his hands had never been unfettered, and he was easily mastered. In a trice he found himself securely lashed to the heavy chair, and then felt another broad band of silk drawn over his mouth. Coolly and methodically the Strangler gagged him in so skilful a fashion ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... had just opened was suddenly darkened. Turning rapidly, he was conscious of a gaunt figure, grotesque, silent, and erect, looming on the threshold between him and the sky. Hidden in the shadow, he made a stealthy step towards it, with an iron wrench in his uplifted hand. But the next moment his eyes dilated with superstitious horror; the iron fell from this hand, and with a scream, like a frightened animal, he turned and fled into the passage. In the first access of his blind terror he tried to reach the deck above through ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... Bucklaw, in the same disparaging manner, "it lies with Sir William's policy to secure the next best match, since he cannot barter his child to save the great Ravenswood estate, which the English House of Lords are about to wrench out of ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... forget that this is a solemn matter," he said ere long; "one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... you know that Time has flapped his wings over your head. Like me, you will find those babies grow to be young men before you are quite sure they are born. Like me, you will have great teeth drawn with a wrench, and will only then know that you ever cut them. I am here to send Walter away over what they call, in Green Bush melodramas, "the Big Drink," and I don't at all know this day how he comes to be mine, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... With a monkey-wrench he removed the two big wheels of the lawn-mower and reversed the pawl in the cogs. In five minutes he had replaced the wheels, and the machine, except for needed ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... glance her companion shot at the city man as Shade noted the latter's admiring look at the girl. Buckheath displayed an awesome familiarity with the machine and its workings, crawling under the body, and tapping it here and there with a wrench its driver supplied. They backed it and moved it a little, and seemed to be debating the short turn which would take them into the driveway leading up to a house on the slope ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... seein' red 'N' raisin' Cain because he had, Back in the caverns iv his 'ead, A 'oller tooth run ravin' mad. Pore Trigger up 'n' down the trench Was jiggin' like a blithered loan, 'N' every time she give a wrench You orter seen the beggar blench, You orter 'eard ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... The wrench with which he finally pulled it up did great damage to the giant's house and his feet broke through the floor. As Tyr and Thor were departing, the latter with the huge pot clapped on his head in place of a hat, Hymir summoned his brother frost giants, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the proper channels—different ones at different times of day—with incredible facility. The smallest child could wrench at a tuning-knob and the desired station came on. All the operating devices of Research Installation 83 worked as if they liked to—which might have been alarming except that they never did anything of themselves. ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... and went forward, reeling at first like a drunken man. But by the time he had reached the stairs he was master of himself again. Swiftly, for all his trembling fingers, he unfastened the cord's end from the newel-post. The wrench upon it had already pulled the bodkin from the wainscot. He went down that abrupt spiral staircase at a moderate pace, mechanically coiling the length of whip-cord, and bestowing it with the bodkin in his pouch again, and all the while his eyes were fixed upon the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Oh, the wrench to the mother's heart at the thought of what she could foresee! But the warmth of the mother-love lent life to the mother-wit. Having sent her little ones out of sight, and by a sign conveyed to Saddleback ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... sons of mercy! yet resume the search, Drag forth the legal monsters into light; Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod And bid the cruel ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... effort, and, whether or not my relaxing had made a readjustment of my position, I found that for some reason I could move forward again, and, with one desperate wriggle, I had my head through the narrow space. To wrench my shoulders and legs after it was comparatively easy, and, in a moment, I was safe on the outer side, where, as I had surmised, the aperture did widen out again. Within a few moments, I was on the edge of the sea, had dived, and ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... face was pinched, and there was a wrench at his heart. He turned to the others. A trooper ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... just as in a more limited sense ships on the seas have what amounts to an international status. Landing-fields must be established and open to foreign planes, each nation providing some kind of reciprocal landing rights to other nations. Arrangements must be made so that if a monkey-wrench drops out of a plane a mile or two up in the air proper damages can be collected. For such things there is to-day ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... really marvellous swiftness he cut the straps of the tin box that Alan wore upon his back, and since there was no time to find the key and unlock it, seized the little padlock with which it was fastened between his finger and thumb, and putting out his great strength, with a single wrench twisted ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... if she would wrench her fingers from their sockets, she clutched at her long white hair, and, rocking to and fro, moaned, "Woe is me, and woe the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... her, and was pleading with her. It was in the drawing-room, and there were stained windows they both remembered in later years. He had talked of his bondage and of his hopes. She was not quite herself; she was suffering too much. I know what happened. Grant told me once of the wrench of him then, and of all the scene. There had been a fierce appeal from him. He had ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... very busy about the victim of gloom and despair. Luther has diagnosed the case of Weller with the skill of a nervous specialist. He counsels Weller not to judge himself according to the devil's prompting, and, in order to break Satan's thrall over him, to wrench himself free from his false notions of what is sinful. In offering this advice, Luther uses such expressions as: "Sin, commit sin," but the whole context shows that he advises Weller to do that which is in itself not sinful, but looks ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... seven miles an hour over easy ground; and even then desperate fights frequently necessitate a stoppage and readjustment of the traces. There are no reins, the dogs being fastened two abreast on either side of a long rope. To start off you seize the sled with both hands, give it a violent wrench to one side, and cry "Petak!" when the team starts off (or should start off) at full gallop, and you jump up and gain your seat as best you may. To stop, you jab an iron brake into the snow or ice and call out "Tar!" But the management of this brake needs some skill, and with unruly dogs an inexperienced ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... and went to his room, where he sat thinking in the dark. By and by all was quiet. Then seemingly with a wrench he bestirred himself and did what for him was a strange action. Removing his boots, he put on a pair of moccasins. He slipped out of the house; he kept to the flagstone of the walk; he took to the sage till out of the village, and then he sheered round to the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... melancholy is in the sentiment of farewells. There are people roving about the world, to-day here, to-morrow afar, who cheat fate and avoid the most poignant wrench of this common experience by letting no root of their affection strike into a home or a heart Self-contained, aloof, unloved, and unloving, they make their campaign through life in movable tents that they strike as gaily as they pitch, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... found herself alone, went to look at herself in a mirror that hung there; and when she saw herself bald she lost the patience she had had until then, and groaned with rage and struck herself, and even tried to wrench off her ears, which appeared to her now outrageously large, although they were not so in reality. She stamped upon her hair and cursed herself for having ever consented to lose it, without remembering her father, and just as if she had no father at all. But as it is a quality ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... pale young girl of eighteen, gave a contemptuous wrench of her shoulder, and turned more decidedly to the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Now you wrench your gaze loose, and you look down in front of you and see the broad Pennsylvania Avenue stretching straight ahead for a mile or more till it brings up against the iron fence in front of a pillared granite pile, the Treasury building-an edifice that would command respect in any capital. The stores ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... endured for any length of time or has left a record of beneficence. Evolution in government is in accord with the processes of life, even to the extent that it is always after a time followed by degeneration; revolution in government is the throwing of a monkey-wrench into the machinery by a disaffected workman, with the wrecking of the machine, the violent stoppage of the works, and frequently the sudden death of the worker as a consequence. The English monarchy from Duke William to Henry VIII, is a case of normal growth by minor ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... ye!" he cried. "Come on! I dare ye!" He pulled himself up with a mighty wrench. But the unknown power held him. He felt the claws of the cow-catcher. He gave ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... Sark, reached him; but it was too late—he had passed the middle of the stream, and was out of the power of the crew. Not so his mare's tail—that had not yet passed the magic line, and Cutty Sark, clinging thereto, dragged it off with an infernal wrench.—R. Burns, Tam O'Shanter. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... None of them would turn in the ancient lock. With an impatient gesture, which escaped the others, the secretary seized Mr. Donovan's hammer, inserted the claw between the lock and the catch, and gave a powerful wrench. The lid fell ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... the thought came; but some one had her arm, and she cried out suddenly, and tried to wrench away. 'Easy now,' a voice said. 'You're breakin' your heart for trouble, an' here I am in the nick o' time. Come with me an' you'll have no more of it, for my pocket's full to-night, and that's more than it'll be in ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... the jolt would wrench his arms from their sockets. Yet Tad held on desperately. And the result, though wholly unexpected by the mountaineer, was not entirely so to Tad. He had figured—had hoped—that a certain thing might ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... The wrench from home and friends could not but be terrible. The sisters, indeed, were so far prepared that they had been aware from the first of his wish and his mother's reception of it, and when they told their Father, he was pleased and comforted; ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that had been used as a prop, Ned gave a mighty wrench backward and fell. He said afterward that it seemed as if he had taken a full week to drop from his position to the floor below. In reality the drop was not a great one. The distance was, however, greater than the height of any of the three ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the difficulties that had weighed upon him, and when Mrs. Bond took a small house farther out, where there were trees and a garden for the General to play in, he furnished two rooms for himself, and, after the first wrench of leaving, he and Peterkin found it very comfortable. His show-cases and other fixtures were moved to a shop not far from the ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... and had a talk with Syd Woodward, the dealer there. It took me just about ten minutes to get down to hard-pan with him, once he was convinced that I meant business. He's going to take over my one heavy team, Tumble-Weed and Cloud-Maker, though it still gives my heart a wrench to think of parting with those faithful animals. I'm also going to sell off fifteen or eighteen of the heaviest steers and turn back the tin Lizzie, which can be done without for a few ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... her secret tribunals to make her terrible; memories of these things must come thronging upon the mind at the mere mention of her spell-like name. Now, with these pictures glowing vividly before you, wrench the mind away with sudden effort to the dreary plains of Pannonia. Think of the moody Tartar, sitting in his log-hut, surrounded by his barbarous guests; of Zercon, gabbling his uncouth mixture of Hunnish and Latin; of the bath-man of Onegesh, and the wool-work of Kreka, and the reed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... this your answer,—'Satan, I will keep Still on the watch till you are laid asleep.' Thus too the Christian's progress he'll retard: - 'The gates of mercy are for ever barr'd; And that with bolts so driven and so stout, Ten thousand workmen cannot wrench them out.' To this deceit you have but one reply, - Give to the Father of all Lies the lie. "A Sister's weakness he'll by fits surprise, His her wild laughter, his her piteous cries; And should a pastor at her side attend, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe |
