"By inches" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one contains enough poison to kill a cat; if it was fixed right, I mean." He passed a thin, shaking hand over his face, and went on: "Do you want to fool with such things?—Not if you are wise. You see, the cigarette habit will kill you sometime, by inches, if not right away, or else drive you crazy; and no sane person wants to kill himself or spoil his health. That is what I am doing, though," he admitted, with a bitter smile and a sad shake of his head. "But I cannot stop it now. I have gone too far, and I cannot help ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... all of you; so she cannot forget it. She is a busy little woman, is Teresina; and when she gets a thought in her head, it buzzes, buzzes, like a fly in a bottle, and she will have it your Reverence is killing yourself by inches, and says she, 'What will all the poor do when he is gone?' So your Reverence must pardon us. We mean it all for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... a' lang about his bree, His tap-lip lang by inches three - A slockened sort 'mon,' to pree A' sensuality - A droutly glint was in ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... within the bounds &c (limit) 233. Adv. by degrees, gradually, inasmuch, pro tanto [It]; however, howsoever; step by step, bit by bit, little by little, inch by inch, drop by drop; a little at a time, by inches, by slow degrees, by degrees, by little and little; in some degree, in some measure; to some extent; di grado in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... his way with a greater caution than before. Now he passed other sleeping forms, and even stepped over one whom he could not otherwise avoid. Finally, after more than an hour of intense anxiety and stealthy movement, only advancing by inches, and with frequent motionless pauses, he discovered the place of which he was in search. It was the mouth of the mine that the Indians had spent two days and nights in excavating. As he had conjectured, it lay very near the ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... my darling," said Madame Mignon after a long pause, "that if I am dying by inches through Bettina's wrong-doing, your father would not survive yours, no, not for a moment. I know him; he would put a pistol to his head,—there could be no life, no happiness ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... playing at?" laughed the luckless officer, feigning to treat the affair as a joke, even while the iron truth was entering his soul by inches. ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... the poor lad have perished? There is his horse, for certain—a brave grey! Nay, comrade, if thou criest to me so piteously, I will do all man can to help thee. Shalt not lie there to drown by inches!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... farther than you do, where would you be? Are you mad as well as reckless, to rise against your own captain because he has two strings to his bow? Go my way, I say, or, as I live, I'll blow up the ship and every soul on board, and save you the pain of rotting here by inches." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... satisfied their sexual desire by making martyrs of their victims, up to complete butchery. The most atrocious types of this kind are perhaps assassins such as "Jack the Ripper," who lie in wait for their victims like cats, pounce on them, revel in their terror, assassinate them by inches, and wallow ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... him, with a knowledge, that they are going to be compelled to submit to the lust of an overseer! and no redress. "How long," says he, "is this frightful system, which tears my body in pieces and excruciates my soul, which kills me by inches, and which involves my family in unspeakable misery and unmerited disgrace, to continue?"—"For ever," replies a voice Suddenly: "for ever, as relates to your own life, and the life of your wife and daughters, and that of all their posterity," Now would not this gentleman ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... dwell by the seashore know well those familiar ripples that mark the sands when the tide is out. On the Goodwins those ripples are gigantic banks, to be measured by feet, not by inches. I can speak from personal experience, having once visited the Goodwins and walked among the sand-banks at low water. From one to another of these banks this splendid boat was thrown. Each roaring surf caught it by the bow or stern, and, whirling it right round, sent it crashing ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... like a lion, forcing his way through the furious crowd, attacked in the most brutal way on every side, yet ever struggling on if only by inches. Never once did his steadfastness waver, never for a single instant did his spirit sink. His unfailing presence of mind enabled him to get through what would have been impossible to most men, his great height and strength stood ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... like that. All the Saints be praised! I'm a man agin, and not a starvin' machine; and I shall see ye, Mary, mavourneen! but, och, the poor boys that we're lavin'! Hurra! how iver will I ate three males a day, and slape under a blanket, and think of thim on the ground and starvin' by inches!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... head. It missed by inches. But from behind came a sound as of rending cloth. The glassy dome above the cage of the machine had ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... stretched,—when all the oceans were continents and all the continents oceans,—between the South American and the Asiatic coasts. And it is just possible that, during the hundred and twenty years in which the ark was in building, a pair of sloths might have crept by inches across this continuous tract, from where the skeletons of the great megatheria are buried, to where the great vessel stood. But after the Flood had subsided, and the change in sea and land had taken place, there would remain for them ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... and addressing the empty air, "C'est moi, c'est moi, qui n'a pas d'argent!"—it was he who had no money and nothing to cover him, and what did they want him to do? If he had come down to be shot at, well and good, but if he was to be frozen and starved by inches... ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... much less worth, how much less dignified, than that fair innocent child. How much better a part she was acting in life—what an influence she was exerting,—as pure, as sweet-breathed, and as unobtrusive, as the very rose in his hand. And he—doing no good to an earthly creature and losing himself by inches. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... die—most of you Mexicans are—but the State can't force you to speak, and I can." Jose sneered. "Oh yes, I can! I intend to know all that you know, and it will be better for you to tell me voluntarily. I must learn where Senora Austin is, and I must learn quickly, if I have to kill you by inches to get the truth." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Walter from Ashiestiel. We began nearly under the ruins of Elibank, and in sight of the 'Hanging Tree.' I only had a rod, but Sir Walter walked by my side, now quoting Izaak Walton, as, 'Fish me this stream by inches,' and now delighting me with a profusion of Border stories. After the capture of numerous fine trout, I hooked something greater and unseen, which powerfully ran out my line. Sir Walter got into a state of great excitement, exclaiming, 'It's ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... had carried it off, and its nest also. Then he told with much laughter how they had unearthed a mole, and how they had tied it to a stick and made it a target to fling stones at, till it had died by inches; no doubt, as Caroline supposed, having suffered great torture. Losing all command of herself, she cried out, "O Herbert, how could you, could you be so cruel! It is quite true what mamma says, you are nothing but a coward, to hunt a dumb creature, ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... to report. We've shifted camp where the flies, and bugs, and things'll let you folks forget the darn river, and the nightmare I guess you dreamt on it. You're all beating the game, some of you by yards, and others by inches. But you're beating it. And I'm still guessing at those things you all know like you were born to 'em. When are you going to hand me the yarn, Steve? When are you going to feel like thinking about the things that two weeks ago looked like leaving ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... doing anything else," replied Jack. "It only takes a smart rap with a club on the head to end their sufferings. I'd hate to think of even a fish dying by inches, and flapping all over the boat or the ground, as it gasps its life away. That's one of the things scouts are taught—to be humane sportsmen, giving the game a chance, whether fish, flesh or fowl, and not inflicting any ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... entirely lost their reason; yet they had a share in the distribution of provisions, and might, before their death, consume thirty or forty bottles of wine, which were of inestimable value to us. We deliberated thus: to put the sick on half allowance would have been killing them by inches. So after a debate, at which the most dreadful despair presided, it was resolved to throw them into the sea. This measure, however repugnant it was to ourselves, procured the survivors wine for six days; when the decision was made, who would dare to execute it? The habit of seeing death ready to ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... don't know what ails him, you'd ort to; so I'll tell you. He's dyin' by inches ever sence you turned his ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... need not be afraid—of me!" said the girl, with white-hot scorn. "I'd rather die by inches of leprosy than belong to you now. You are clever, though. And I was easy to deal with, wasn't I? And I cared so much! I dare say it was really your hair and beard, but I honestly thought you a sort of Archangel! Well, you're not. You're not anything ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... and happiness in the world! To be sure, I shall not see it." (Here the poor prince gave a sigh.) "How lovely the lake will be in the moonlight, with that glorious creature sporting in it like a wild goddess! It is rather hard to be drowned by inches, though. Let me see—that will be seventy inches of me to drown." (Here he tried to laugh, but could not.) "The longer the better, however," he resumed, "for can I not bargain that the princess shall be beside me all the time? So I shall see her once more, kiss her perhaps—who ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... had never liked Coconnas since hearing the latter's sanguinary boast that he had redeemed as many as thirty Huguenots from the hands of the populace, only that he might induce them to abjure their religion, under promise of life, and afterward enjoy the satisfaction of murdering them by inches under his dagger.[1376] ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... easily, finding plenty of hand and footholds. They came to rest on one of the shelflike circumvoluting rings, some twenty-five feet above the ground. Soon the blunt brown tentacles slithered in search of them, but failed to reach their refuge by inches. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... wood as though it were accursed, though indeed it was not half so gloomy then as it is now. The sun shone into it then, sometimes, and the birds sang. You would n't think it from the looks of things now, would you? As the dead man rotted in his grave, and the living man died by inches above him, they say the wood grew darker, and darker, and darker. How dark it's getting now, and cold,—cold ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Sir, have you been with Captain P——n? He answer'd, No, sir. I thought, sir, you promised me you would: However, I have his answer from Mr Bulkeley; I am to be carried a prisoner to England. Gentlemen, I shall never live to see England, but die by inches in the voyage; and it is surprising to me to think what you can expect by going to the southward, where there are ten thousand difficulties to be encounter'd with: I am sorry so many brave fellows should be led to go where they are not acquainted, when, by going to the northward, there ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... jauntiness of spirit, the courage which sustained him and helped also to sustain his comrades, kept him from feeling his position so acutely, and helped also to assist him in surviving a state of affairs which to some had long since become intolerable, which indeed was killing not a few by inches. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... slightest idea, sir. But I must get away from this hum-drum existence. It is killing me by inches. I need adventure, life in the open, where a man can breathe freely ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... up over the stern of that schooner, a trifle compared to the same task on the Nautilus; but it was hard work to Mark Vandean, who had to move by inches, getting well hold and drawing himself up till he was about to reach his hand over the top, when he felt one foot gliding from its support, and thought that he was gone. But a spasmodic clutch saved him, and after clinging there motionless and in a terribly constrained attitude ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... precipice, whose height I can mete by inches here, Is a thousand fathoms quite. I must journey to your foot, Grow on you as on my root; Feed upon your silent speech, Awful air, and wind, and thunder, Shades, and ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... "I will kill yuh by inches, if I hear any remarks out of yuh that ain't respectful," Andy promised, thawing to his normal tone, which was pleasant to the ear. "I didn't find out much about 'em. The fellow I licked told me that Whittaker and Oleson owned the ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... pass either in or out until the train was safely on the great boat that was to transfer it across the river. There the turbulent stream of humanity was permitted to burst forth, and in another moment a stalwart young soldier, who seemed to have broadened by inches since she last saw him, had flung his arms about Mrs. Norris's neck. Then he shook hands with his father and kissed both the girls, at which Spence Cuthbert ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... because I fancy that this function will, within some not distant interval, afford fine opportunities of being knocked on the head or shot—forms of death which are very preferable to a long illness, which kills you by inches and demolishes you bit by bit. God's will be done! I have little chance of adding much to my store of knowledge; I have a pretty accurate idea of the amount of truth which the human mind can, in the present stage of its development, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... said the mate, 'it is better to be killed outright by the blacks, than die by inches from hunger and thirst. I am ready to step on shore first, and you may shove off, and wait till you see ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... him—not yet—wait. The harm that is done by waiting is measurable by inches. Wait. How old are you? Is that rude? No—of course it isn't. It's only rude when a woman's got to answer you with a lie. How old are ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... was wrong to stay in like this week after week, and month after month. He—he said you were killing yourself by inches, Monsieur Maurice." ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... evening, turning to me with the troubled look I had seen so often on his face of late, "what be wrong wi' you, my chap? You be growing paler everyday. Oh, Peter! you be like a man as is dyin' by inches—if 'tis ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... "Now look at it Here you are in hell! Caged up with two old crows picking the life out of you. They'll kill you-I can see it; you're being killed by inches. You can't go anywhere, you can't have anything. Life ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinico may tutor thee. You scurvy valiant ass! Thou art here but to thrash Troyans, and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... been thankful to escape from this irksome inactivity, and to join the band going south; but the condition of Griffeth withheld him, for the youth was very ill, and he often felt that this winter of hardship up in the mountain air was killing him by inches, although he ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... because he cannot, say it—without showing what a big fool he is. However he has begun again to say it. If it had not been for human respect he would not have said it last Sunday; he was too feeble. God is killing him by slow fire, by inches. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... door he stepped back with it, escaping by inches the sweep of an axe blade that caught the light from the lamp and shimmered brightly in a half-circle as it was swung with the ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the universal world- market. Some see a solution of the social problem in sham co- operation, which is merely an improved form of joint-stockery: others preach thrift to (precarious) incomes of eighteen shillings a week, and industry to men killing themselves by inches in working overtime, or to men whom the labour-market has rejected as not wanted: others beg the proletarians not to breed so fast; an injunction the compliance with which might be at first of advantage to ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... an evening in their lives. And let us just contemplate the scene for a moment. How happy, joyous, and innocent they were, just as God intended his children to be. Two days before, this lovely family had been in the depths of despair, day by day watching a beloved wife and mother dying by inches of a painful, lingering, loathsome disease. Not a sound of music had been heard in the house for many days. The violin, guitar, and dulcimer had lain utterly neglected and unstrung. Now a change has occurred that must have delighted ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... I also know that it is barely enough to keep one body and soul together; the two of us would only starve by inches. No use, Nanna, we must take things as we find them. But isn't it strange—" She stopped abruptly and let her glance wander over the luxurious table-service, the gleaming surface of the silver reflecting her troubled eyes. She ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... knees, and arms, pinioning the latter to his body, so that, excepting his head, which was 'left free to enjoy the prospect,' he could not move a muscle. In this condition he hung for days beside his stiffened companion; dying by inches of famine and cold, which had moderated so as, without ending, to aggravate his misery. Before he died, he had gnawed his shoulder from very hunger. On the fifth night, as it approached twelve o'clock, having been motionless ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... to you, sir," replied he; "troth and whaix, I didn't taste a morshel for the last fwhour—hugh—hugh-and twenty hours; and sure, sir, it's this cough that's killin' me by inches." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... knowledge of returning vigour and in the steadily increasing size and power of his biceps. His bones no longer showed an anxiety to burst through his skin. The tired ache, after a little exertion, was no longer with him. His chest broadened by inches and his body took on the buoyancy and elasticity that were his real birthright, but of which the close confinement of Ukalla had almost robbed him ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... There roasting by inches, dry, fevered, and faint, Having drunk all the cream you so civilly laid, off, He dies of as charming a liver complaint As ever sleek person could wish a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... more; and the bear still lives. Talk to me about that, will you, if he didn't shoot its stub of a tail off that time! What next, I wonder? Why not execute the poor beast scientifically, and not murder him by inches?" ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... the hill, for I was anxious that the Malays should not discover from what direction I came. I confess that I did not feel quite comfortable about the matter, but I thought to myself, it is just as well to be killed outright as to die by inches from starvation. The Malays were not a little astonished at seeing an English midshipman in their midst, although I certainly had very little of the smart look which belongs to the genus. The guards ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... soon sink under his afflictions. Mr. Walcott told me that it was with the greatest difficulty he could keep a few fowls, on account of the smaller vampire; and that the larger kind were killing his poor ass by inches. It was the only quadruped he had brought up with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... suppose he is sometimes right side upward in his natural condition—graced the sign-board. The sign-board chafed its rusty hooks outside the bow-window of my room, and was a shabby work. No visitor could have denied that the Dolphin was dying by inches, but he showed no bright colours. He had once served another master; there was a newer streak of paint below him, displaying with inconsistent freshness the legend, By ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... The unfeeling relative inherited the nephew's wealth, but, like all ill-gotten gear, it did not bring happiness. Frightful dreams and dreadful sights compelled the uncle to leave the mansion, where he had murdered by inches a comely, docile young man, once the comfort of a fond mother and loving father. For a few nights nothing of an alarming nature occurred; she began to hope that confidence would be restored in her household, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... snaked after him. It missed by inches, and went pitching into the gulf. In his haste he caught his foot on the interlaced thongs, stumbled and almost fell—which saved his life, for another spear streaked through the very spot he had been a second before. Then he was ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... strangely contrasted with the calmness of his last words. "Yes, I love her always, and I do not wish to die, so that I can plunge myself deeper and deeper with wild delight into this furnace where I am consumed by inches. For you do not know—that night—that night in which I saw her so beautiful—that night is always present to my thoughts—that picture of voluptuousness is there, there—always there—before my eyes. Let ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... to our diligence,—horses, oxen, and beasts of every kind which we could press into the service; while half-a-dozen postilions, shouting and cracking their whips, strove to urge the motley cavalcade onward. Still we crept up only by inches. The road in most cases wound over the very peak of the mountain; and there the tempest, rushing upon us from all sides at once, threatened to lay our vehicle, which shook and quivered in the blast, flat on its side, or toss it into the valley below. The storm continued to rage with unabated ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... dying by inches is bitter indeed! I believed that you would marry Murray—at least I knew any other woman would—and I felt that to refuse his affection would be a terrible trial, through which you could not pass with ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... song she sings inspires no regret. A prayer said and the child enters Nirvana. Namu Amida Butsu! As for these two—I would kill them by inches; as they twisted, and staggered, and fell grasping at the air, and in every way showed their agony. In the next world may they meet with a mountain set with sharp-edged swords, so cruel ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Russell missed it by inches. The batter had still another chance. But it availed him little, for Joe fooled him ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... without freezing. With some difficulty I now succeeded in killing three of my dogs—and I envied those dead beasts whose troubles were over so quickly. I questioned if, once I passed into the open sea, it would not be better to use my trusty knife on myself than to die by inches. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... had hitherto found him an unsympathetic and critical man, who bore in his person traces of the battle he had fought. There were those who called him lucky; but these had lain softly and fared well while he starved and wrought, winning his way by inches until he built up out of nothing the splendid trade of ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... he answered, with a sort of sob in his excited voice. "She's murdering him by inches, that's what she's doing, and I want you to help me bring it home to her. God knows what it is she's using or how she uses it; but you know what demons they are for secret poisons, those Javanese, what means they have ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... tell un all," argued Joan. "Why shouldn't 'ee? 'Tis the same, so far as you'm concerned, whether he's killed to wance or dies by inches." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... origin of my malady. I went to work, Sir; I plucked up the cursed garden, I cut down the infernal chesnuts, I made a bowling green of the diabolical wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by inches,—have been dying ever since. The malaria ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Van Busch, broader by inches and taller by half a head, dwindled, seen in juxtaposition with this man of the iron will and the leader's temperament, to a flabby, dwarfish, and petty being. The fierce grey eyes took him in, and read him, and dropped him, and fastened on the little Englishwoman, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... added to my desire to hasten from such scenes; and I had soon left the town for the Ohio. I will not weary you with further details, as my breath is failing fast. Suffice it to say I arrived in Mexico, and, here I am, perishing by inches upon ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... she had forced large quantities down her throat by sheer strength of will. But she had found the result all that she had expected, she had alternated between exhilaration and oblivion, and was sure that it was killing her by inches. Now, she could indulge in neither wild imaginings nor forget. And if he cured her!—but her will when she chose to exert it was as strong as his, and her resource ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... chance for me at all," he groaned, at length. "I'm in a much worse predicament than the beaver and muskrats; for if they do get killed, it's so sudden they don't know it, but I've got to die by inches. I've just got to sit here and freeze a little at a time, till I fall off ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the opposing team braced itself and began a steady drive down the gridiron. With desperate energy, the Sunrise eleven fought for ground, giving way slowly, defending their goal like true Spartans, dying by inches, until only three yards of space were left on which to die. The rooters shrieked, and the girls sang of courage. Then a silence fell. Three yards, and the Sunrise team turned to a rock ledge as invincible ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... it as anything but China's most awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through this once fair land ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... steady flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten sensations that settle on him; such pain it is, the old sweet music reviving through his frame, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... That's what makes me sick. Right on top of all his bad luck he comes here and sees that everybody is getting a big roll. He thinks of that white-faced wife of his dragging herself round among the kids and dying by inches for lack of what money can buy her. I tell you I don't blame him. It's the fellows putting the temptation up to him that ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion, nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide. Neither will children die by inches in mills and factories. No man will dare to break a child's life upon the wheel ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... his hands, and all three the picture of despair. Mother Meraut stood before them, her eyes flashing, her cheeks burning a deep red, and this is what she said: "I will not live like this another day. Life in Rheims is no longer possible. I will not stay here to be killed by inches. I have made arrangements to get a little row-boat, and to-morrow morning we will take such things as we can carry and leave this place. Whatever may happen to us elsewhere, it cannot be worse than what is happening here, and it may possibly ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... standing over him. He said he had heard the shot, and come up just in time to see Richard fly from the house, his shoes covered with blood. He has never been heard of since; but there is a judgment of murder out against him; and the fear and shame is killing his mother by inches." ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... made a power dive. Forrester dodged and the fangs of the monster missed him by inches. Mars sank claw-deep into the ground, and Forrester slammed the War God on the side of his head with one mighty forepaw. Mars blew out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke and managed to jerk himself free. He leaped to all four feet, glaring ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worse than this Saturday-to-Tuesday business of dying by inches; and then I should go on into something else. If I had been a moderately good otter I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probably something rather primitive—a little brown, unclothed Nubian ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... "thousands." Most all the observers said the UFO's were saucer- shaped, traveled at almost unbelievable speeds, and didn't seem to have any set flight path. They would dart in and out and seemed to avoid collisions only by inches. There was no doubt that they weren't hallucinations because the mayor, the local newspaper staff, ex- pilots, the highway patrol, and every type of person who makes up a community ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... I twist in figures of eight, I fight my way by inches against the wind, and, turning, I shoot back upon its current with the speed of a projectile. I am shaken and buffeted until I gasp for breath. I swerve, I dance, I caracole—I pirouette on a wing tip, catching my side slips on the rudder as one plays cup and ball. I dangle myself at the end of ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... sterling for the tenant-right sold by him of ground, the head rent of which is L1, 2s. 6d. a year. The worst enemy of Father M'Fadden will hardly suspect him, I hope, of taking such a sum as this from a tenant farmer for the right to starve to death by inches.[13] ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... royalist army can march from La Vendee to Paris; unthought of sufferings to be endured, the blood of thousands to be sacrificed, before France will own that she has been wrong in the experiment she has made. We must fight our battles by inches, and be satisfied, if, when dying, we can think that we have left to our children a probability of final victory. Normandy and the Gironde may be unwilling to submit to the Jacobin leaders, but they are as yet as warmly attached to the Republic as Paris itself. And, Bonchamps, you little ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... tongue, cold beef, exquisite bread, and many inches of butter. I suppose you know, but no one else at home can guess, why I say inches of butter. All the butter in Cambridge must be stretched into rolls a yard in length and an inch in diameter, and these are sold by inches, and measured out by compasses, in a truly mathematical manner, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... steadily narrowing, though the man and the girl were working slowly and deliberately, really covering the ground by inches, so thorough was their search for clues of the supposed night visitors. No spot of the size of a hand escaped the keen scrutiny of one or the other of them. They could not have answered had they been asked what particular thing they had hoped to find, but in some vague way each ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... Borgert, coolly; "it is the only way out of all our difficulties, and it is not the first time I have had the thought. Is it not better to put an end to this dog's life than to die by inches in penury and distress?" ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... shrubs so that, in every respect except in dimensions, they shall be an accurate facsimile of what they would have been had they grown for cycles unrestrained in the forest. The Japanese gardener "dwarfs trees so that they remain measurable only by inches after their age has reached scores, even hundreds, of years, and the proportions of leaf, branch and stem are preserved with fidelity. The pots in which these wonders of patient skill are grown have to be themselves fine specimens of the keramist's ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... near the coast of Ireland to make the entrance of the British Channel. There a trial of patience awaited us. A hard-hearted east wind barred our progress, and with long tacks we seemed to make headway only by inches. Yet the little "Harmony" bravely held on her way, when larger vessels ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... harm her in the least—" It was Steve's voice though certainly at first neither Blenham nor even Terry could have recognized it. "If you harm her in the least, Blenham, I'll kill you. Not all at once—just by inches!" ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... before him: he could see them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them—and, though the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones; that death was coming upon him by inches—and that there were none to care ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... excitement that stirred his forefathers to battle. Not a line of the tragedy that was being enacted before his eyes escaped this native son of the wilderness. It was a magnificent fight! He knew that the old bull would die by inches in the one-sided duel, and that when it was over there would be more than one carcass for the survivors to gorge themselves upon. Quietly he reached up ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... through the agonized dream that fiends were staking him down under water and torturing him by letting the water rise higher and higher, until finally he would be drowned by inches. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... mothers, the most diminutive but pretty little objects imaginable. I delayed here an additional day on the poor creature's account, but all our efforts to raise her proved unsuccessful. I could not leave the poor dumb brute on the ground to die by inches slowly, by famine, and alone, so I in mercy shot her just before we left the place, and left her dead alongside the progeny that she had brought to life in such a wilderness, only at the expense of her own. She had been Mr. Tietkens's hack, and one ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... greatly mistaken. She thinks constantly of this young man, and it is killing her by inches. Ah! if you knew what a shock it gave me, and the remorse which has made me almost distracted, since I have realised the truth of the case, and carried her upstairs in so pitiable a state. It is our fault. We have separated them by falsehoods, and I am not only ashamed, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... rest at night securely in this house, undisturbed by pretended ghosts. Do you see these wounds and bruises?—for them I am indebted to Sydney; my wife is a raging maniac, and I am also indebted to him for that—and by eternal hell! when I get him in my power, he shall die by inches; he shall suffer every slow torture which my ingenuity can devise; his brain shall burn, and when death shall end his torments, I have sworn to eat his heart; and by G——, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... undertake a plan of this sort on the theology of Widow Bedott's hymn, "K. K., Kant Kalkerlate"; for in this song of life on six feet by thirteen, calculation is the sole rhyme for salvation. We have heard of dying by inches: this is living by inches. If there be not floor-room, then perhaps there is wall-room, and every possible article must be made to hang, from the boot-bag and umbrella behind the curtain to the pretty market-basket, so toy-like, in the corner. Indeed, it is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... chased out of the country, thought he was dead, and some of these friends were caring for Celie. Just after Rasputin was killed, and before the Revolution broke out, they learned Armin was alive and dying by inches somewhere up on the Siberian coast. Celie's mother was Danish—died almost before Celie could remember; but some of her relatives and a bunch of Russian exiles in London framed up a scheme to get Armin back, chartered a ship, sailed with ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... pinched by hunger, without hope of relief! Better to have been drowned at once; better to have fallen by the paw of a mouser, or to have been caught like my brothers in a trap, than to be dying thus by inches on a barrel, tossed in ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... rushing, swung right and left, missing by inches. Fyfe's mocking grin seemed to madden him completely. He rushed again, launching another vicious blow that threw him partly off his balance. Before he could recover, Fyfe kicked both feet from under him, sent him sprawling ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... or of the Vedas, who being afraid to die, takes flight before any danger, real or imaginary, all the while wishing that somebody else would remove the danger by destroying the person causing it. He is no follower of Ahimsa who does not care a straw if he kills a man by inches by deceiving him in trade, or who would protect by force of arms a few cows and make away with the butcher or who, in order to do a supposed good to his country, does not mind killing off a few officials. ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... tells us, that a boy of ten or eleven years of age was bitten by a vampire, and a poor ass, belonging to the young gentleman's father, was dying by inches from the bites of the larger kinds, while most of his fowls were killed by the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... everything I did was wrong; I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate; my sour, pale face was perfectly repulsive; my voice made him shudder; he knew not how he could live through the winter with me; I should kill him by inches. Again I proposed a separation, but it would not do: he was not going to be the talk of all the old gossips in the neighbourhood: he would not have it said that he was such a brute his wife could not live with him. No; he must contrive to ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... growl, nor roar, that cry, but a sheer scream, as if something had broken inside of him. He missed Mulcachy by inches, as another blank cartridge exploded up his other nostril and as the men with the rope snapped him back so abruptly as almost to break ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... of his wife and children, Rutton! There's a chance yet—a bare chance; he may have reached the boat. If he did, every minute I waste here is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure! But from Shampton we could ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... over there in France was real to you," he continued. "Well, less than a mile from this spot, I called this afternoon on a man who is dying by inches of consumption, contracted while working in our office. For eight years he was absent from his desk scarcely a day. The force nicknamed him 'Old Faithful.' When he dropped in his tracks at last they carried him out and stopped his pay. He has no care—nothing to eat, even, except the ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... get up and go to work, and upon Dolbie declaring that he was unable, Brahim beat him with a stick, to compel him to go; but as he still did not obey, Brahim threatened that he would kill him; and upon Dolbie's replying, that he had better do so at once than kill him by inches, Brahim stabbed him in the side with his dagger, and he died in a few minutes. As soon as he was dead, he was taken by some slaves a short distance from the town, where a hole was dug, into which he was thrown without ceremony. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... said in his last illness, "Ah, Sir Thomas, it will be sooner over with me than it would be with you, for I am dying by inches." Lord Chesterfield was very short.' CROKER. Southey, writing of Rokeby Hall, which belonged to Robinson, says that 'Long Sir Thomas found a portrait of Richardson in the house; thinking Mr. Richardson a very unfit personage to be suspended in effigy among lords, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... forcibly held back and only allowed to stand where it was about an inch deep, and he was nearly wild with impatience when he found that this process was to be repeated every day in spite of all he could say or do, the water rising higher and higher by inches, so that for sixty days he had to live in perpetual silence, ceremoniously conducted to and fro, supping all his meals through the long reed, and looking on at innumerable games of chess, the game of all others which he detested most. But at last the water rose as high as his ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... the way of the sea, by the great bridge of boats over the Scheldt. The sea and the dykes are the defence of Antwerp on this side. Whole regiments of troops are crossing the bridge of boats. Our car crawls by inches at a time. It is jammed tight among some baggage wagons. It disentangles itself with difficulty from the baggage wagons, and is wedged tighter still among the troops. But the troops are moving, though by inches at a time. ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... ventilation was afforded on all sides but one, that it was not possible to remain beyond a few moments without retreating for recovery to the outward air. Irritation of body, produced by utter filth and exposure, incited her to the horrid process of tearing off her skin by inches; her neck and person were thus disfigured to hideousness.... And who protects her," Miss Dix suggestively asks, "who protects her,—that worse than Pariah outcast,—from other wrongs and blacker outrages!" This question had more meaning for ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... fly with him, indeed does go through some mummery of marriage with her—so she says—and the rest of it. Now he has deserted her and she is in trouble, and what is more, should the priests catch her, likely to learn what it feels like to die by inches in a convent wall. She came to me for counsel and brought some silver ornaments as ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... unhappy here—so wretched, this is but a gleaning white stone prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my father bring me here to die by inches?" There was no pretense in her ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... make me drag it from you by inches. Tell it to me in a pretty melodious narrative. Either that, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... was his action that the wolves running behind him were unable to stop until they had carried six or eight yards beyond. One or two jostled the leader in passing and were rewarded with swift, silent slashes of his great jaws. Luckily for themselves, the culprits escaped death by inches, and leaping swiftly aside, mingled with their companions, while the great grey leader stood squarely upon his ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... "that I wish to kill this dog by slow degrees, would it not be a good plan to give him a little of it every day, and let him die, as it were, by inches?" ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... then she did not know of that purchase made in the town. The Captain, rebelling against the doctor's order, hugged himself as he thought of it and of the comparatively sparing use he had made of it so far—for fear of being found out. There was no need of him to die by inches while he had that store of life and comfort; so he told himself, and secretly made use of it, with anything but good result. Julia, marking the disimprovement in his health, thought it was the natural course and saved him all work, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... it then. I will not tell you what he said; it must be sacred between my boy and me. Oh, you do not know him! His nature is intense, like mine; he takes nothing easily. When he says that it is killing him by inches, and that we must go away, I know he is speaking the truth. How is he to live here, seeing you every day, and knowing that there is no love for him in your heart? How could any man drag out such ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... its worst murderers. If my son wants to murder me, I would rather have him kill me outright than to take five years to do it. A young man who goes home late night after night, and when his mother remonstrates, curses her gray hairs, and kills her by inches, is the worst ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... out to sea through the estuary. It seems that the vessels were wrecked on certain shoals at the entrance to the estuary, and the Chinese with all their possessions fell into the power of the Moros, who inflicted on them a severe punishment—seizing them all, and putting them to death by inches in a most cruel manner, flaying their faces, and exposing them on reeds and mats. When the Spaniards entered the town, they encountered not a few similar sights; and so recent was this deed that the flayed faces of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... watched the dogfight on the scanner in horrified fascination. Never before had they seen such maneuvering, as the giant ships avoided collision sometimes by inches. Once, Tom tore his eyes away from the scanner when he saw a rocket destroyer plow through the escaping swarm of jet boats after one of the pirate ships had ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... decided I would rather stake my chances on a long swim even than perish by inches on the floe, as there was no likelihood whatever of being seen and rescued. But, keenly though I watched, not a streak even of clear water appeared, the interminable sish rising from below and filling every gap as it appeared. We were ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... "but away with them all! Why not leap your graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying by inches. 'Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... down there with them," she confessed. "But it seemed that I couldn't get away. Frank, you don't know what angels of mercy those girls have been! Elsie found out that Mrs. Moran was starving and dying by inches for lack of proper food and medicines, and since then she and Inza have been down there every day, and often two or three times ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... forty miles eastward, into the San Fernando Mountains; and good forty miles more or less along the coast. The boundaries were not very strictly defined; there was no occasion, in those happy days, to reckon land by inches. It might be asked, perhaps, just how General Moreno owned all this land, and the question might not be easy to answer. It was not and could not be answered to the satisfaction of the United States Land Commission, which, after the surrender ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... men—earthly men, and not incarnate devils, who thus appeal to Heaven, while they are devouring by inches the life blood of their hapless master!" muttered Catharine, as her two baffled inquisitors left the apartment. "Why sleeps the thunder? But it will roll ere long, and oh! may it be to preserve as well as ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... thew and muscle. As he stood there, clad in a cotton shirt and trousers belted at the waist, he was the figure of a perfect man. His shaggy head was thrown back, but his handsome face was distorted by its expression of hate. Ralph was the smaller by inches, but his muscles were as fine-tempered steel. There was even more of the wild in his expression than in that of his brother. The ferocity in his face was wolfish, and not good to ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum |
