"Clap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He could not come within gunshot. If they clap eyes on him, they will hustle him to jail, and his cutthroats shall not avail him a hair's weight. The impertinent swore he'd be here ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... silence, which was followed by a wild, abrupt outcry from half a million people—the roar of indistinguishable words bursting forth from the lips of all that throng, whose accumulated volume arose in one vast thunder-clap of sound, pealing forth, echoing along the terraced streets, and rolling on far away in endless reverberations. It was like the roar of mighty cataracts, like the sound of many waters; and at the voice of that vast multitude I shrank ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fur tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it stall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... the frame and shut down upon the top. If seed was scattered on the board, and the trap was put out in the yard, the little bird would fly down, hop upon the board, the board would give way, and the trap would shut with a clap. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... spot in this landscape we would direct attention. It is a frame-house, or cottage, which, if not built according to the most approved rules of architecture, is at least neat, clean, comfortable-looking, and what one might style pretty. It is a "clap-boarded" house, painted white, with an edging of brown which harmonises well with the green shrubbery around. There is a verandah in front, a door in the middle, two windows on either side, and no upper storey; but there are attics with dormer windows, which are ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... his open hand fall heavily with a loud clap on the table before him, disturbing the papers on it from their places, and causing the fine blue sand, which stood in an open wooden basin for the purpose of doing the office of blotting-paper, to be spilled in all directions by the concussion, and said aloud, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell you plainly that if you go farther you will be scandalized by seeing good, sober folks of real history so frisk and caper in gay colors and motley that you would not know them but for ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of Class versus Mass is generally mere clap-trap; but, in this case, there is really no doubt that a fraction of the Classes stands in the way of the fulfilment of a very reasonable demand on ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... at once was a blinding glare followed by roaring thunder-clap that echoed and re-echoed from rugged cliff to mountain summit near and far until this was whelmed and lost in the rush of a booming, mighty wind and this howling riot full of whirling leaves and twigs and riven branches. And now came the rain, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... work; and what do you suppose will be the first thing they will all want to do? Do you want to know? They all nod. They will all want to get down on their hands and knees, Grandfather and Grandmother and all, and crawl under the table. Won't that be funny? They all clap their hands and dance up and down. That's what the magic hazel nuts will make them do, says SANTA CLAUS. And when they have crawled under the table—you see, it's a table that has a Christmas dinner on it, and that makes a difference, of course—well, when they have crawled under the table, then—. ...
— The Christmas Dinner • Shepherd Knapp
... Hans. It was beautiful to be able to give pleasure to people. She could just fancy how Gretchen's eyes would glisten as she talked to her in her mother tongue, while little Hans' shyness would vanish under the genial influence of Pompey's sympathetic companionship, and he would clap his hands with delight as Brutus and Caesar drew them under the arches of evergreen beauty, bending low beneath their ermine robes, while the silver bells broke the hush of silence which dwelt among the forest halls with a subdued melody and then rang out joyously as they emerged into the open, ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... explosion of oaths, curses, cries of despair, and frightful exclamations which, like a clap of thunder, burst forth when the gates of Hell were thrown open by the angels, would be difficult even to imagine; our Lord spoke first to the soul of Judas, and the angels then compelled all the demons to acknowledge and adore Jesus. They would have infinitely ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... the pursers and settling the pursers' matters of the fleete according to my proposition. By and by the office sat, and they being up I continued at the office to finish my matters against the meeting before the Duke this afternoon, so home about three to clap a bit of meate in my mouth, and so away with Sir W. Batten to White Hall, and there to the Duke, but he being to go abroad to take the ayre, he dismissed us presently without doing any thing till to-morrow morning. So my Lord Bruncker and I down to walk in the garden ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... believe that the power of Great Britain was superior to all opposition, and that foreign aid was at hand, they were even higher and more insulting in their opposition than the regulars. When the order was issued, therefore, for embarking the troops in Boston, no electric shock, no sudden clap of thunder, in a word, the last trump, could not have struck them with greater consternation. They were at their wits' end; chose to commit themselves, in the manner I have above described, to the mercy of the waves at a tempestuous season, rather ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... and heavy, and again ringing and metallic, seemed to punctuate the roar of the advancing host. Sergius saw a horseman near him clap his hand to his forehead and plunge headlong to the earth: horses reared and snorted, some fell with ugly, red blotches on their breasts and throats; the clangour and the thuds came faster—faster; for now the clay and leaden bullets ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... loot! Bloomin' loot! That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot! It's the same with dogs an' men, If you'd make 'em come again. Clap 'em forward with a Loo! Loo! Lulu! Loot! Whoopee! Tear 'im, puppy! Loo! ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... containing only common air, I force a quantity of nitrous air at random, out of a bladder, and instantly clap my finger on the mouth of the bottle. I then immerse the neck of it into water, a small quantity of which I suffer to enter, which squirts into it with violence; and immediately replacing my finger, remove ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... Chingulays call the large leaves the boughs, and the leaves on the sides, the leaves. They fall off every Year, and the skin upon which they grow, with them. [The Skins, and their use.] These skins grow upon the body of the Tree, and the leaves grow out on them. They also clap about the buds or blossoms which bear the Nuts, and as the buds swell, so this skin-cover gives way to them, till at length it falls quite off with the great leaf on it. It is somewhat like unto Leather, and of great use unto the Countrey People. It serves them instead ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... with little pats, one or another would clap their hands to their pockets behind and look round, as though expecting young Jolyon or some disinterested-looking person to relieve them of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the Place a very Alsatia, now that Scamp's Paradise in Whitefriars had been put down by Act of Parliament. Here they burrowed like so many Grice, till the shoulder-tapping Pilchers of the Compter came a badger-drawing with their bludgeons. 'Twas a perfect chaos of clap-dishes, skeldering, cranion-legged Impostors, fittous cripples, and gambling bullies, for ever roaring over Post and Pair, or Dust Point, or throwing their Highmen, or barbing gold, or yelling profane songs and catches. A man was killed here about every other day in some Callet ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... desecrations ill agree with what is truly stated by my predecessor in the New Statistical Account, that "the inhabitants of Muthill, until very lately (i.e., about 1835), held S. Patrick's name in so high veneration that on his day (March 17) neither the clap of the mill was heard nor the plough seen to move in the furrow." Across the Earn from Strageath is a farm called Dalpatrick, and a ford ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... which, by a sudden flash of lightning, she fortunately found. The bottle was uncorked, and its contents immediately sprinkled over the ladies and gentlemen. It was a most dreadful storm, and lasted a considerable time; she therefore redoubled her sprinklings and benedictions at every clap of thunder or flash of lightning. At length the storm abated, and the party were providentially saved from its effects; which the good lady attributed solely to the precious water. But when the shutters were opened, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... attractive resort for their boys, Satan will. There are places enough, kept warm and light and bright and merry, where boys can go whose mothers' parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There are enough to be found to clap them on the back, and tell them stories that their mothers must not hear, and laugh when they compass with their little piping voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame. In middle life, our poor Sophie, who as a girl was so gay and frolicsome, so full of spirits, had dried and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... stood together upon the platform, among hurrying crowds, in black fumes that poisoned the palate with sulphur. This way and that sped the demon engines, whirling lighted waggons full of people. Shrill whistles, the hiss and roar of steam, the bang, clap, bang of carriage-doors, the clatter of feet on wood and stone—all echoed and reverberated from a huge cloudy vault above them. High and low, on every available yard of wall, advertisements clamoured to the eye: theatres, journals, soaps, medicines, concerts, furniture, wines, prayer-meetings—all ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... the Islander, the passengers of both vessels, on board of her, began to clap their hands. I was embarrassed by this demonstration, and after asking Washburn to see that we were made fast to our consort, I sat down in the pilot-house where they ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... Spectators sit in the Gallery, 7. the common sort stand on the Ground, 8. Spectatorum primarii, sedent in Orchestra, 7. plebs stat in Cavea, 8. and clap the hands, if anything please them. & ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... just take my Seven-league Boots, run over to Rome, pick up Prince Charles, put him on the magic carpet, fly to London, clap the Cap of Darkness on him so that nobody can see him, set him down on the throne of his fathers; pick up the Elector, carry him over to his beloved Hanover, and the trick is done—what they call a bloodless revolution in ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... not a clap-board in this world that I can poke my head under and lay claim to its shelter!" said she, sitting again in her low rocker, shaking her ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... this extraordinary territory are also entitled to claim credit for their share of eccentricity. 'They are extremely polite; they do not rudely clap a pistol to your ear, and bawl at you: "Your money or your life!" No; they mildly advance with a courteous salutation: "Venerable elder brother, I am on foot; pray lend me your horse. I've got no money; be good enough to lend me your purse. It's quite cold to-day; oblige me with the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... a stir outside," agreed the agitator, blandly. He looked the chairman up and down with interest. "You may call me Sylvester—Talleyrand Sylvester. Yankee dickerer! Buy and sell everything from a clap o' thunder to a second-hand gravestone. It brings me round the country up here, and so I've been the Squire's right-hand man in the political game, such as there's been of it." He turned his back on the pondering Duke ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... says be; and so they did, and Paul, he led that colt—the kickinest and ugliest young beast you ever see in your life—up to the place where his master, as he calls him, and he lives. What does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of long spurs and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tail up, heels flying, standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and at last going it full run for a couple of miles, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Greenwich—Did you ever see it? It was quite a new world to me, and a very charming one. Only on the top of a most inaccessible hill in the park, just as we were arrived at a view that we had long been aiming at, a violent clap of thunder burst over our heads.'—Carter and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Margaret Hugonin was beautiful, for the reason that I have never found a woman under forty-five who shared my opinion. If you clap a Testament into my hand, I cannot affirm that women are eager to recognise beauty in one another; at the utmost they concede that this or that particular feature is well enough. But when a woman is clean-eyed and straight-limbed, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... forked and furious, the fiery flung flashes, Gleam o'er the sad wreck like a funeral pyre; And louder and louder each thunder clap crashes. The air in a ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... wrong!" interrupted the odd man. "Bless my liver pin, but it was so dark I couldn't see, and when that clap of thunder came I shifted the deflection rudder instead of the lateral one, and tried to knock over ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... manner that had lately fastened on her when she heard a stirring of the grass behind her and Edward Dunsack approached. He was livid in the pitiless light, and seemed terribly fragile, a thing that a mere clap of thunder might crumble to nothing; she felt that she could sweep him away with a broom; yet at the same time there were startling gleams of inner violence, a bitter energy, an effect of ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of serious alarm to Malvilain. One day, a mass of black and thick clouds was gathered close over the point of Cavite, and a frightful—that is, a tropical—storm burst. The claps of thunder followed each other from minute to minute, and before each clap the lightning, in long serpent-like lines of fire, darted from the clouds, and drove on to the point of Cavite, where it tore up the ground of the little plain situate at the extremity, and near which the ships were moored. Notwithstanding the storm I was ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... Suddenly fell a rumbling thunder-clap that droned through all the wood and died away in a long chain of rough sounds. The children looked at one another and then at the trees and the sky. All stood black now, the sun was gone and a warm wind came working ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... under his girdle againe: she proceeded to a very sound discourse, whereto he listened with no little attention. The time serving fit for the fellows purpose, he came behind the Gentleman, and as many times one friend wil familiarly with another, clap his hands over his eyes to make him guesse who he is, so did this companion, holding his hands fast over the Gentlemans eyes, sayde: who am I: twise or thrise, in which time the drab had gotten the purse and put it up. The Gentleman ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.
... rather the English government, objects and protests against the instructions given to our cruisers, which instructions are intrinsically faultless. Mr. Lincoln jumps up and writes a clap-trap dispatch, wholly contrary to our statutes. Mr. Seward promises what he cannot perform, and this time the upshot is that his dispatch came before the Cabinet and was ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... you, you obstinate whelp?" said the deep voice of the captain, as he came up and gave me a box on the ear that nearly felled me to the deck. "I don't allow any such weakness aboard o' this ship. So clap a stopper on your eyes or I'll give you something ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... attacks on their neighbours. And then there's a lawsuit commences between them, sir, and no end to the worry and fret. They bring it before the court here, and go off to the chief town, and there everyone in court is on the look-out for them and they clap their hands with glee when they see them. Words do not take long, but deeds are not soon done. They are dragged from court to court, they are worn out with delays; but they are positively delighted at that; it's just that they want. "I've lost a lot of money," one will say, "but ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... and the Westminster election, with the exception of a trifling after-clap or two, such as the High Bailiff sending me in a bill for my third share of the hustings, amounting to upwards of two hundred and fifty pounds (I think that was the sum). I refused the payment of it, and he commenced an action for the amount, and obtained a verdict for a great ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... of hands and the mysterious bow. Then all advance the left foot and repeat the previous movements, half-turning to the left. Then all take two gliding paces forward, with a single simultaneous soft clap of the hands, and the first performance is reiterated, alternately to the right and left; all the sandaled feet gliding together, all the supple hands waving together, all the pliant bodies bowing and swaying ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... He never did such a thing before. In an instant, like a thunder-clap when the sun was shinin', he h'isted up his heels and kicked Abraham in the head, and knocked him over on the ground, and then stopped as though to think ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... and afflicting his heart; death, like some evil spirit or ghost, doth continually haunt him, and playeth the butcher continually in his soul and conscience, with frights and fears about the thoughts of the sudden, and insupportable after-clap, by and by he is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that's your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that's it—now you have it. Hold it ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... words, a little demon of subtlety. We had begun by disputing, but I soon saw that without my stirring a finger his infatuation would have its bad hours. He would bound off on false scents as I had done— he would clap his hands over new lights and see them blown out by the wind of the turned page. He was like nothing, I told him, but the maniacs who embrace some bedlamitical theory of the cryptic character of Shakespeare. To this he replied that if we had had Shakespeare's own word for his being ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... the scenery of Hindhead. You never dreamt that it was all a plan: that what made me so nice was the way I was playing up to my destiny as the sweet girl that was to make your boy happy. And then! and then! [She rises to dance and clap her hands ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... but we'll clap it to him on a de bonis non. I'll never take my eye off him till ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... and me's jest like the figger ten: if yaou haul off the one we ain't good for nothin'. If yaou want to see a faithful friend, jest clap yer eyes on Sam Whittlefield. And that ain't all," continued the skipper, looking around and speaking low. "Ye might not think it, for he's master-modest, but Sam's got larn-in' that there ain't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... the widower for his power and his fame, and she wedded him. They were married in that church. It was on a summer afternoon—I recollect it well. During the ceremony, the blackest cloud I ever saw overspread the heavens like a pall, and, at the moment when the third bride pronounced her vow, a clap of thunder shook the building to the centre. All the females shrieked, but the bride herself made the response with a steady voice, and her eyes glittered with wild fire as she gazed upon her bridegroom. He remarked a kind of incoherence in her expressions as they rode home-ward, which surprised ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... squeeze the lace several times, but do not rub it. Dip it frequently into the tea, which will at length assume a dirty appearance. Have ready some weak gum-water and press the lace gently through it; then clap it for a quarter of an hour; after which, pin it to a towel in any shape which you wish it to take. When nearly dry, cover it with another towel and iron it with a cool iron. The lace, if previously ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... eagle, that, in however long a flight, he is never seen to clap his wings to his sides. He seems to govern his movements by the inclination of his wings and tail to the wind, as a ship is propelled by the action of the wind ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... noblemen: some carried us into our own country, showed us our friends and relations, and brought us back again the same day. Thirty days and nights we remained in this place, being most luxuriously feasted, and fast asleep all the time, when we were suddenly awaked by a violent clap of thunder, and immediately ran to our ship, put in our stores, and set sail. In three days we reached the island of Ogygia. Before we landed, I broke open the letter, and read the contents, which ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... publishing the story to the whole world. Not only will you be made a laughing-stock of, but some scribbler, some ink-splasher will put you into a comedy. There's the horrid sting. He won't spare either rank or station. And everybody will grin and clap his hands. What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself, oh you! [Stamps his feet.] I would give it to all those ink-splashers! You scribblers, damned liberals, devil's brood! I would tie you all up in a bundle, I would grind you into meal, and ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... alarm-post, the later ones buckling their accoutrements as they ran halting now and then, and muttering as they fumbled with a strap or a button. Jose at my instruction had loosened his horse's off hind shoe just sufficiently to allow it to clap; and as soon as he was ready I opened the door boldly, and we stepped out into the lane among the soldiers, cursing the dog's son of a smith who would not arise from his lazy bed to attend to two ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... question of human progress—has reached its last trial. If we keep this mighty nation one and inseparable, we shall have answered it forever; if not, why then those who revile man as vile and irreclaimably degraded may raise their paeans of triumph; the black spectres of antique tyrants may clap their hands gleefully in the land of accursed shadows, and hell hold high carnival, for, verily, it would seem as if they had triumphed, and that hope ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to give," said the lady slowly, as she removed the envelope from her letter and looked up with a dazzling but cruel smile. "A So'th'n gentleman don't fill up his pockets when he goes out to fight. He don't tuck his maw's Bible in his breast-pocket, clap his dear auntie's locket big as a cheese plate over his heart, nor let his sole leather cigyar case that his gyrl gave him lie round him in spots when he goes out to take another gentleman's fire. He leaves ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... or silk is very much soiled, it is best to pass them through a warm liquor of bullock's gall and water; rinse in cold water; then take a small piece of glue, pour boiling water on it, and pass the veil through it, clap it, and frame to dry. Instead of framing, it may be fastened with drawing-pins closely fixed upon a very clean paste, ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... matters were soon lost sight of in the excitement of the Civil War. This thing which changed all our lives the way war does, came upon me like a clap of thunder. I was living like a hermit, and working like a horse, not trying to make any splurge, as I might have done, even having given up the idea of getting me a team of horses, which I had been thinking of for a while back ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... a thunder-clap of inspiration, hitting his knee, "I have it. Mama-baby! That's it. My girlie is a cry-baby, mama-baby!" And made to slide along the divan toward her, but up flew her two small hands, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and went off with it at full speed towards the willows, where it left it, and came galloping back for the expected reward—not now, as in days of old, a bit of meat, but a gentle stroke of its head and a hearty clap on its shaggy side. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a little later, and we must have fled in front of them, instead of escaping on one side. Even as it was, the least misfortune might betray us; and now and again, when a grouse rose out of the heather with a clap of wings, we lay as still as the dead and ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was first dramatised," he said, "the poem of the 'Walrus and the Carpenter' fell rather flat, for people did not know when it was finished, and did not clap in the right place; so I had to write a song for the ghosts of the oysters to sing, which ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... broke forth presently, looking at me humorously over her glasses. "Aye, a quare man! Ye come here with a pack of riotous livers from Edinburgh, clap your eyes on my young lady for the first time last night, and are for marryin' her off hand this morning with no more to do over it than if marryin' was ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... sez he, in a voice like a clap Of thunder, or a cannon's roar: 'Now say good-bye to the air and the sky For you'll never see land ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... midnight that might mean despair—come over to us like messengers from the great rock, and take our little promontory by storm. They come silently one by one, and gather round and fold over us; then suddenly clap their hands and burst with such a deluge of rain that it seems a matter for wonder that any little creeping human things could survive the flood. And it does us good; we are thoroughly drenched, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... impulse to clap my hands at St. Pierre de Chartreuse, as at some "setting" excellently designed and carried out by the most celebrated of scene painters. It was a place in which to stop a month, finding a new walk for each new day; but one does not discover ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... of this fortress came like a thunder-clap over Europe. It announced the reign of anarchy in France, and the helplessness of the King. On hearing of the fall of the Bastille, the King is said to have exclaimed to his courtiers, "It is a revolt, then." "Nay, sire," said the Duke of Liancourt, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... compare with the melons that are grown in Georgia, no matter what the variety. The same may be said of the wit and humor that belong to Georgia. An old man—Uncle Tom Norris he was called, on account of his gray hairs—was once heard to say (speaking professionally), "Let me clap a drop of the low-wines to my tongue, and I'll tell you what branch the fire was kindled on." He was a distiller, and knew his business. One need not be an expert to say the same of Georgia humor. It is almost possible to tell the very militia district in which it originated. It ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... know not what you mean by that, but I am sure Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleas'd and displeas'd them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... having nothing else to do, she amused herself by building an elephant of snow, with large ears and a little tail, made of a yak's hair. And when it was finished, she was so delighted with her toy, that she began to clap her hands: and then, not being able to endure waiting, she went off with impatience to fetch the Moony-crested god, to show him what she had done, and revel in his applause. And the moment that her back was turned, Nandi[3] ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... had my loaded revolver in my belt. Though we had not in the least anticipated this sudden revolt—it broke like a thunder-clap from a clear sky—the unsettled state of the country made even women go armed ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... twenty-five of us—all that our small house would hold. There were more games than dances; and the games were largely "kissing" games: "post-office," "clap-in, clap-out," "drop the handkerchief," and such-like innocent infantilities. Some of us thought ourselves too old for this sort of thing, and would willingly have left it to the younger children; but the eager lady from next door, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... street that could be called which was only a wide, cleared space, intersected by rails, with here and there a stump, and great piles of sawn logs bulking big in the moonlight, and a number of irregular clap-board, steep-roofed houses, many of them with open fronts, glaring with light and crowded with men. We had pulled up at the door of a rough Western hotel, with a partially open front, being a bar-room crowded ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Margaret. "What's the use of turnin' the house into a clap of thunder like that? But a man was makin' it o' purpose, for I went out to see; and he telled me it was to call folks to luncheon. Will you get up, ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of soot hanging on the bars of the grate indicated a visit from a stranger. By clapping the hands close to it, if the current produced by this, blew it off at the first clap, the stranger would visit that day. Every clap indicated the day before the visit would be made. This is still a common practice, of which the following lines taken from Glasgow Weekly Herald, 1877, ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... sure there ain't; and why clap on the blinkers, my dear? You that has a face like a rose, and with a cove like Jerry Hunt, that might be your born father? (But all this don't ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to rain. Great drops pattered down upon him as he emerged, and he turned back to clap his sou'wester upon his head. Then, without ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... they saw, looking in at the lighted dumb-show in the house, that new arrivals had come. Vincent felt a premonitory clap of his heart and set his teeth in his cigarette. Yes, Marise had come, now appeared in the doorway, tall, framed in green-leafed branches, the smooth pale oval of her face lighted by the subtle smile, those dark long eyes! By God! What would he not give to ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... his brig was sinking, when he could have put in at Gib, or the Azores, or Las Palmas, or brought up in one of the West Coast rivers, where he could run up on the tidal mud, careened his vessel, and set his ship's carpenter to work to clap patches upon her bottom outside and in. Don't you call ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... was so near that I could see his great mouth quite plainly. I could have tossed a biscuit on his back easily. Sending two thick spouts of frothy water out of his blow-holes forty feet into the air with tremendous noise, he fell flat upon the sea with a clap like thunder, tossed his flukes or tail high into the air, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... character. Many of the tales unfortunately suffer from a hackneyed use of situations, materials, and ideas, suggestive of the hack writer. Gorki's cheap sentiment, and maudlin pity, often result in clap-trap and padding which are foreign to the artist proper. But this is the effect of his predilection for ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... will such say when sin begins to appear to the conscience, and when the law shall follow it with a voice of words, each one like a clap of thunder? I say, what will such say when they shall read that the Publican did only acknowledge his iniquity, and found grace and favour at the hand of God? But that God is infinitely merciful; merciful indeed, and that to those, or to such, as do in truth stand in need of mercy. Also that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... The thunder-clap that followed was mingled with a crash, a burst of smoke, and a shriek that caused Adams to leap from his couch as a bullet whistled past his ear. In the succeeding lightning-flash he beheld a woman near him with an uplifted axe, another ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... ye warily, And heed ye the houses where ye go, For as fair and as fine as they may be, Lest behind your heels the door clap to. Fare forth with the bow to the lily lea Betwixt the ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... know that you will be safe there, in the present state of the dean's suspicions. No; tuck up those confounded petticoats, clap on your pea-jacket, twist those love-locks up under your cap, light this cigar, and sit in your easy-chair. The dean must be 'cuter than usual, if he finds you out as the lady he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... an auditors, yes? Bravo!" cried Mademoiselle, recovering herself and beginning to clap. And to the sound of that clapping the curtain went up or, rather, apart. A voice said, in a breathless, choked way, "Beauty and the Beast," and ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... unbidden. A blind ungovernable impulse seems to hold sway in the passions of the affections. Love is blind and seems to completely subdue and conquer. It often comes like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, and when it falls it falls flat, leaving only the ruins of a ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the players by audible recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him to silence. Pope countenanced Agamemnon by coming to it, the first night, and was welcomed to the theatre by a general clap; he had much regard for Thomson, and once expressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of which, however, he abated the value by transplanting some of the lines into his ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt, and wrap All round us; we but feel our way to err: The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map; And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections: now we clap Our hands, and cry, 'Eureka!' it is clear - When but some false ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... "Never mind. That clap burst quite loud enough to be heard without finger-pointing. Did you hear of the event at Montreal last year? A servant girl struck at her bed-side with a rosary in her hand; the beads being metal. Does your beat extend ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... thunder caused Grace to clap her hands over her ears with a little moan, while even steady-nerved Betty jumped in her seat and took a tighter grip of ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... the Artful Dodger ahead of us on the dock. He went over and looked up and down and under an old upturned rowboat, then peered over the dock and swore a harmless oath that if we could catch him we would run him in without a warrant. Yes, we'd clap the nippers on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... would clap her hands, and Andrea would have all he could do to see that no bird, greedier than the rest, got more than ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. Christmas-eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... thousand times I suppose the scene has arisen to rack Henry H. Rogers with bitter memories of his baseness. The severest punishments are not those that we mortals inflict on our fellows whom for violations of our little earthly laws we clap in striped suits and shackle with steel bracelets. What are striped suits which imprint no mark on the body of the wearer, or handcuffs that any blacksmith can strike off at a blow, in comparison with the ever-recurring torture of the white-hot iron with which God sears the hearts and ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... was exceedingly gratified at her daughter's engagement; of course she was very quiet about it, she did n't clap her hands or drag in Mr. Tester's name; but it was easy to see that she felt a kind of maternal peace, an abiding satisfaction. The young man behaved as well as possible, was constantly seen with Joscelind, and smiled down at her in the kindest, most protecting way. They looked beautiful together; ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... the bearing of the savages, at least so long as they remained at the brook; and even when the journey was resumed, which it soon was, their deportment was but little less loving. It is true, that the senior, before mounting his horse, proceeded very coolly to clap the noose, which had previously been placed on Roland's arms, around his neck, where it bade fair to strangle him, at the first false step of the horse; but the young Indians walked at his side, chattering in high good humour; though, as their stock of English extended only to the single phrase, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... My master conjure me! I'll tell thee what; an my master come here, I'll clap as fair a [91] pair of horns on's head as e'er thou ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... who did "Auld Lang Syne" went away from the pianoforte, every lady in the room began to clap hands, they seemed to be so glad that Mr. Greeley had found time to have a birthday. Then Miss Cleveland, in the blue dress, sat down, looking sweet and modest as a white dove; and she sang, too, real sweet; ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... poor Workman of his glass of beer!!!" And can that clap-trap, then, still raise a cheer? The British Workman has a thirsty throat, The British Workman also has a Vote, One will protect the other—if it cares to. But if he'd close, by vote, the shops such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... like a prisoner who has been kept in the dark and is let out free into the sunshine," she said one day to Paragot, who had remarked on her gaiety. "I want to run about and dance and smell flowers and clap my hands." ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... And don't bother over that silly joke about the 'surprise packet.' You see, you won't be that. I have no doubt you sing vastly better than most of them, but they will not realise it. It takes a Velma to make such people as these sit up. They will think THE ROSARY a pretty song, and give you a mild clap, and there the thing will ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... a Blessing 'tis, thou hast a Mistress thou dar'st boast of; for I know thy Humour is rather to have a proclaim'd Clap, than a secret Amour. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... justice done him. Government takes care o' fools and madmen; and if any man is inclined to do himsel' or his neighbour a hurt, it puts a bit of a check on him, whether he likes it or no. That's all we do i' th' Union. We can't clap folk into prison; but we can make a man's life so heavy to be borne, that he's obliged to come in, and be wise and helpful in spite of himself. Boucher were a fool all along, and ne'er a worse fool than ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... along and somehow made his way to the burial tree. A moment he paused, awed by a superstitious fear of the dead, but a violent clap of thunder terrified him into forgetting all but his immediate danger. There were only a few moments left; if he could reach the top of the tree before the island dashed past the vines, he might save himself. His hands tremblingly sought the notches sacred to the ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... gloom—out of the ground at his feet, as it appeared to Lidgerwood—and in the twinkling of an eye the night and the starry dome of it were effaced for the superintendent in a flash of red lightning and a thunder-clap louder than ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... over, Joe sat still and thoughtful as if making up his mind, when Miss Gordon came to him and asked him to join, he stopped a minute to button his coat and went right straight up and had his name put down, but oh how the people did clap and shout. Well as Joe was one of the last to sign, the red ribbons they use for badges was all gone and Joe looked so sorry, he said he wanted to take a piece of ribbon home to let his wife know that he belonged to the ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... drifted them like snow, And left them lying in the silent sun, Never to rise again!—the work is done. Come forth, ye Old Men, now in peaceful show And greet your Sons! drums beat, and trumpets blow! Make merry, Wives! ye little Children stun Your Grandame's ears with pleasure of your noise! Clap, Infants, clap your hands! Divine must be That triumph, when the very worst, the pain, And even the prospect of our Brethren slain, Hath something in it which the heart enjoys:— In glory will they ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... to have confest to Louis XIV., having used it at the instigation of the Chevalier de Lorraine (a favorite of Monsieur), whom Madame had caused to be exiled. One of the finest sermons of Bossuet describes the "disastrous night on which there came as a clap of thunder the astonishing news! 'Madame is dying! Madame is dead!' At the sound of so strange a wo people hurried to St. Cloud from all sides to find panic over all except ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Phoenix first is seen, Her feathered subjects all adore their queen, And while she makes her progress through the East, >From every grove her numerous train's increased; Each poet of the air her glory sings, And round him the pleased audience clap their wings." ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... vapour covered him, and in a minute or two the whole sky was clouded. The air had grown sultry, and a gust of wind came suddenly. A moment more and there was a flash of lightning, with a single sharp thunder-clap. Then the rain fell ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... While they clap and stamp at your nightly fate, They shall never know The curse that drags at you, until Hell's gate. ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... their pity, and that he is held up as an example to his young cousins to avoid. If he loses his money they call him poor fellow, and point morals out of him. If he falls among thieves, the respectable Pharisees of his race turn their heads aside and leave him penniless and bleeding. They clap him on the back kindly enough when he returns, after shipwreck, with money in his pocket. How naturally Joseph's brothers made salaams to him, and admired him, and did him honour, when they found the poor outcast a prime minister, and worth ever so much money! Surely human nature ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... all clap-trap—should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... out yourself,' added his mother, 'you are flooding the whole room.... The Word was made Flesh,' she added under her breath, as a terrific clap of thunder shook the house. Magda crossed herself; Jendrek laughed and cried, 'What a din! there's another.... The Lord Jesus ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... without your grace"— "Item, for half a yard of lace." Who that had wit would place it here, For ev'ry peeping fop to jeer? To think that your brains' issue is Exposed to th'excrement of his, In pow'r of spittle and a clout, Whene'er he please, to blot it out; And then, to heighten the disgrace, Clap his own nonsense in the place. Whoe'er expects to hold his part In such a book, and such a heart, If he be wealthy, and a fool, Is in all points the fittest tool; Of whom it may be justly said, He's a gold pencil ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... no way to keep that lachrymose female out of my house with her belated calf-love? She annoys the good Herr Kirtley." And he would toddle out, slamming the door like a clap of thunder. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... resolved to make use of the spiritual power, which for six years he had slighted. He gave orders that the aged Pope should be released from his detention at Fontainebleau, and hurried secretly to Rome. "Let him burst on that place like a clap of thunder," he wrote to Savary (January 21st). But this stagey device was not to succeed. Even now Napoleon insisted on conditions with which Pius VII. could not conscientiously comply, and he was still detained at ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... yoursel, [so good] Sae pious and sae holy, Ye've nought to do but mark and tell Your neibour's fauts and folly! [faults] Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, [well-going] Supplied wi' store o' water: The heapet happer's ebbing still, [hopper] An' still the clap plays clatter! [clapper] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... rows, replaced the plate, and seized the comb as Toddie placed the violin against his knee, as he had seen small, itinerant Italians do. A second or two later, as the host and hostess entered the dining-room, there arose a sound which caused Mrs. Burton to clap her fingers to her ears, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... But still she admired that Bartley could be so much at his ease. He pointed to a stick at the foot of the hat-rack, and said, "How much that looks like Halleck!" which made the old man laugh, and clap him on the shoulder, and cry: "So it does! so it does! Recognized it, did you? Well, we shall soon have him with us again, now. Seems a long time ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... are true." Then came Nathan. "There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb"—and all that exquisite, that divine fable—ending, like a thunder-clap, with "Thou art the man!" Then came the retribution, so awfully exact and thorough,—the misery of the child's death; that brief tragedy of the brother and sister, more terrible than anything in AEschylus, in Dante, or in Ford; then the rebellion of Absalom, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... that he was intently searching every square inch of the pedestal flooring. Then they saw him crawl, like a stalking cat, toward a portion near the center—saw him clap the tumbler, upside down, over some ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... dismayed, nor know 190 Whether they should stand or go; And Benjamin is groping near them, Sees nothing, and can scarcely hear them. He is astounded,—wonder not,— With such a charge in such a spot; 195 Astounded in the mountain gap With thunder-peals, clap after clap, Close-treading on the silent flashes— And somewhere, as he thinks, by crashes [28] Among the rocks; with weight of rain, 200 And sullen [29] motions long and slow, That to a dreary distance go— Till, breaking in upon the dying strain, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... and the old man stepped out just as the bear reached the door. Then striking him with one of the clubs, it broke in pieces. The bear stumbled. Renewing the attempt with the other war-club, that also was broken, but the bear fell senseless. Each blow the old man gave him sounded like a clap of thunder, and the howls of the bear ran along till ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... "Why—Why I think it's rather interesting! Why—Why—Though I must admit," she laughed out suddenly, "that I never quite thought of things in just that way before!" She looked out the window. She looked in the fire-place. She looked at my Father. She looked at Carol. She looked at me. She began to clap her hands. "I've got it!" she said. "I know what I'd choose! A White Iris! In all the world there's no perfume that can compare with the perfume of a White Iris!—Orris root they ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... a thunder-clap from out the clear, One minute they were circus beasts, some grand, Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer: Rival attractions to the hobo band, The flying jenny, and ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... wine-bibbing and the punch-making. The one idea of his life had become his master. He was the bonden slave of one gloomy thought—one horrible presentiment. A dark cloud was brooding above his uncle's house, and it was his hand which was to give the signal for the thunder-clap, and the tempest that was ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... much as once tumbling down; or hanging at the same height from a bush by the tail, to dry, or air, or sun himself, as if he were flower or fruit. There he is, a monkey indeed; but you catch him young, clap a pair of breeches on him, and an old red jacket, and oblige him to dance a saraband on the stones of a street, or perch upon the shoulder of Bruin, equally out of his natural element, which is a cave among the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... figs and milk; she herself confessed, and her doctor told me, that she had closed her room to him and to the other medical attendants for a fortnight that she might indulge in this way. Immediately after the storm she began to die. Yesterday evening she said to me: "Oh, Madame! that clap of thunder has done me great harm;" and it was evident that it ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... these favours require something a little uncommon to make a suitable return, I shall take my leave in metre, and, if contrary to my opinion, it meets with a kind acceptance from the town, honest Sam. may clap it in the next edition of the State Poems, with Buckingham's name ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... is it?" cried Sara, afraid to move, yet longing to clap her hand to her cheek; for she knew by a sudden terrible tickling there that something had happened to her southwest dimple—and she had meant to be so careful! And yet she had allowed herself to get so interested in the talk of the Plynck and her Echo that she had walked right past Schlorge's ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... theatre's discordant hum? You'd think you heard the Gargan forest roar Or Tuscan billows break upon the shore, So loud the tumult waxes, when they see The show, the pomp, the foreign finery. Soon as the actor, thus bedizened, stands In public view, clap go ten thousand hands. "What said he?" Nought. "Then what's the attraction? "Why, That woollen mantle with the ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... 18th—and their meeting was on the subject of Childers's Budget proposals. Chamberlain, writing to me about it, said: "We are likely to want four millions less money. Therefore, says Childers, let us have a new Budget and clap an additional tax of L300,000 on wine." Chamberlain also wrote to me, after his interview with Mr. Gladstone, on the Monday afternoon, telling me that Randolph Churchill was going to give notice of a Committee to inquire ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... made for Hippolytus d'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, representations of sundry birds setting on the tops of trees, which, by hydraulic art and secret conveyance of water through the trunks and branches of the trees, were made to sing and clap their wings; but, at the sudden appearance of an owl out of a bush of the same artifice, they immediately ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs |
