"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sundry is considered to be almost a snub, so the habit of wearing long finger-nails in China has descended through every rank of Society until it is now more often the badge of envious imitation than of any scholarly attainments. So precious to the owners are these claw-like nails that I have often seen them protected by silver sheaths, and have heard that for cases of extraordinary growth the whole of the left hand is even ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... it was a mere tent of skins and curious pictography, under the shadows of gigantic trees, looking down on the glistening waters of the Columbia; inwardly, it was a museum of relics of the supposed era of the giant-killers, and of the deep regions of the tooth and claw; of Potlatches, masques and charms of medas and wabenoes; of curious pipes; of odd, curious feathers, and beautiful shells and feather-work and pearls. But, though all things here were rude and primitive, the old chief had a strong poetic sense, and the place and ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... silver franc on the table beside the remnants of the broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a black, claw-like hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a cadaverous little man, incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard of a moth-eaten tow-color, and a purple flush on his cheeks. His uniform ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... spectacle struck him motionless. His lantern made visible a struggling, heaving mass of rats, fighting tooth and claw, enormous ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... touch, A tang of. . .well, it was not wholly ease, As back into your mind the man's look came. Stricken in years a little, such a brow {50} His eyes had to live under!—clear as flint On either side o' the formidable nose Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw. Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? When altogether old B. disappeared, And young C. got his mistress,—was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all? What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? Our Lord the King has favorites manifold, And shifts ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... what looked like a spider with a very long tail, which latter adornment was curled up over his back like that of a squirrel. He put it down close to the table, when down came its tail with considerable force. He showed me a sort of claw in the tail, through which the poison, which lies in a bag at the bottom of it, is projected. I called to the doctor, whose house was within hail of mine, to come and look at it. He told me that it belonged to the class Arachnida, It had two ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the joints and thin between them, (see the bone of the next chicken leg you eat), the other is that of animals that have shells or horny coats, in which characteristically the shell is thin at the joints, and thick between them (look at the next lobster's claw you can see, without eating). You know, also, that though the crustaceous are titled only from their crusts, the name 'insect' is given to the whole insect tribe, because they are farther jointed almost into sections: it is easily remembered, also, that the projecting ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... always to be jumping over somebody else, and you must either talk or bark. If anybody speaks to you, you must snap in return. I need not explain what snapping is. You know. If anyone by accident gives a civil answer, a claw-full of hair is torn out of his head to stimulate his brain. Nothing ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... as it would have seemed through a magnifying glass. And the voice—oh, horror!—the voice was his own voice—Maurice Basingstoke's voice. Maurice shrank from the voice, and he would have liked to claw the face, but he ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... The brown claw of the old hunter was never far from the grip of his gun when he lay before a campfire. Jack saw the hand clamp upon the weapon ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... sight I have seen in the world. From all quarters they come hither to bury their dead. When his time is come yonder hoary old miser, with whom we made our voyage, will lay his carcase to rest here. To do that, and to claw together money, has been the purpose of that strange ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... natural for the ould bedraggled eagle in the cage with a club on his wrist to dream of the circles he used to cut and the fish he set claw to. In them days I feared no man's weight, and no night or stream. 'Twas all joyous battle to me, and now, as I sit here on velvet with only to snap me fingers for anything I want, I look back at thim fierce old times with a sneaking kind ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Zanzibar. They are arrant rogues, and rob travellers, when they can, by open violence. They always demand more tribute than they expect to get, and generally use threats as a means of extortion. One of their chiefs, the Lion-Claw, was very troublesome, sending back the presents which had been made him, and threatening dire vengeance if his demands were not complied with. Further on, Monkey's-Tail, another chief, demanded more tribute; but Speke sent word that he should smell his powder if he came for it; and, exhibiting ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Elbe has been completely changed. Between the mouth of the river and Hamburg, the right bank formerly belonged to Holstein, and the left to Hanover. Now both are Prussian. Hamburg itself is under the wing of the Prussian eagle, and may soon be under its claw. The feeling in that city is anti-Prussian; but the citizens were wise enough to side with their powerful neighbor, and to contribute troops. This has certainly saved them from the fete of Frankfort, but it is not probable that Hamburg will be allowed to remain a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... struck only once, and it amounted to nothing. It was in the same battle. A pigeon became so frightened by the smoke and racket that it flew hither and thither, and finally perched on my shoulder. While there a musket ball struck its claw at the junction of the toes with the leg, and entered my shoulder. The resistance it met was so tough that it saved my shoulder from being shattered; except for that, the hurt must have proved serious, but it did ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... going to bump that waiter. (He lifts his finger as a signal—lifts it as though it were a soft and friendly claw.) Here y'are, Caramel. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... outing, put a tom-tit constable on guard till they came back. But here is a still more remarkable circumstance. On one occasion several other tom-tits wanted to rob this deserted nest, and they actually came up to the constable and put something in his claw, after which he looked the other way while they were rifling the nest. They had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... frame the sovereign law, And heal the hurts of ocean isles Till hid are savage tooth and claw And Peace above the battle smiles,— If Justice reigns and Mercy clings, What think ye, Masters, ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly in his claw. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... was nearly buried with the press of canvas which she was obliged to carry; for had we sea-room, we should have been lying-to under storm staysails; but we were forced to carry on at all risks, that we might claw off shore. The sea broke over as we lay in the trough, deluging us with water from the forecastle, aft to the binnacles; and very often as the ship descended with a plunge, it was with such force that I really thought she would divide ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... lifts, wind may follow," added the captain. "If it breezes up from the south we may have to hike out of here in a hurry. How much chain is out? Forty-five? Well, have the bosun clap the devil's claw on ahead of the shackle, and loosen the pin, in case we have to drop the cable. And—all hands at ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... mentioned are founded on reason; but how can you explain such absurdities as Friday being an unlucky day, the terror of spilling salt, or meeting an old woman? I knew a man of very high dignity, who was exceedingly moved by these omens, and who never went out shooting without a bittern's claw fastened to his button-hole by a riband, which he thought ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... into his face as steadily as I could. He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... of God, charity, kind gentlemen, charity!" and the old crone stretches forth a long, bony claw. Should you pass on she calls down curses on your head. If you are wise, you go back and fling her a copper to stop the cold streaks that are shooting up your spine. And these old women were the most trying sights I ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... all was bustle, smoke, grimy figures, and stern commands, while down in the engine and boiler rooms the sixteen furnaces were belching out fire and smoke, and the firemen standing in front of them, like so many gladiators, tugged away with devil's-claw and slice-bar, inducing by their exertions more and more intense combustion and heat. The noise of the cracking, roaring fires, escaping steam, and the loud and labored pulsations of the engines, together with the roar of battle above and the thud and vibration of the huge masses of iron ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... Buried with the person we found a bundle of "devil's claws" (Martynia). These are used by the Mexicans of to-day for mending pottery. They drill holes through the fragments to be joined and pass into them one of these claws, just as we would a rivet. The claw is elastic and strong, and answers the purpose very well. My Mexicans understood at once to what use they had ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... is," said Lethal, holding out his crooked forefinger like a claw, "that this soi-disant duke—what the deuse is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... upon D'Arnot tooth and nail, beating him with sticks and stones and tearing at him with claw-like hands. Every vestige of clothing was torn from him, and the merciless blows fell upon his bare and quivering flesh. But not once did the Frenchman cry out in pain. He breathed a silent prayer that he be quickly delivered ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... round us in a circle, with their eyes turning towards us—as if they were waiting for us to die to come and eat us. One big fellow left his place in the circle and waddled up to my feet and examined my boots. First with one claw and then with the other he took a taste of my boot. He went away obviously disgusted: one could almost ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... born during the week were baptized for ten cents. These pitiable little creatures, deformed and shrunken, were too weak to wail, or, perhaps they were too stupified with narcotics. A large candle was put into each little bird-claw, the nurse or mother holding it in place above the passive body covered only with a scrap of gauze but decked out with paper flowers, huge pieces of jewelry, odd trinkets, anything they had—all dirty, mother, child, ornaments; the onlookers still more ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... example, meeting Dr. Bastwick, would ask him with irritating politeness when his new book was coming out. Many of the pamphlets, however, and these the most daring and intemperate in expression, were anonymous. Such was The Arraignment of Persecution, purporting to be "printed by Martin Claw-Clergy for Bartholomew Bang-Priest," and to be on sale at "his shop in Toleration Street, right opposite to Persecution Court." In this and other popular squibs, to which neither authors nor printers dared to put their names, the toleration which Goodwin ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... carved with fantastic hunting scenes by Hainault craftsmen. Its hangings were stiff brocaded silver, and above the pillows a great unicorn's horn, to protect against poisoning, stood out like the beak of a ship. The horn cast an odd shadow athwart the bed, so that a big claw seemed to lie on the coverlet curving towards the throat of her who lay there. The parish priest had noticed this at his first coming that evening, and had ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... and they lighted down on the brink of the basin which is in the pavilion-terrace. He watched these birds and saw, amongst them, one goodlier than the rest, which pecked the others and flouted them, whilst none of them dared put out a claw to it. Presently, they set their nails to their neck-collars and, rending their feather-suits, came forth therefrom and became damsels, each and every, like the moon on fullest night. Then they doffed their dress and plunging ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... of family has an old place to keep these things in, furnished with claw-footed chairs and black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... thing that stares me in the face every waking hour, like a grisly spectre with bloody fang and claw, is the extermination of species. To me, that is a horrible thing. It is wholesale murder, no less. It is capital crime, and a black disgrace to the races of civilized mankind. I say "civilized mankind," ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... heels, rubbing dirt from gold and debating in just what manner he should rise up. He might rise up with a rush and claw his way out of the hole to meet whatever threatened on the even footing above ground. Or he might rise up slowly and carelessly, and feign casually to discover the thing that breathed at his back. His instinct and every fighting fibre of his body favored the mad, clawing rush to ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... points and thus aid the central work of Poyas. Meanwhile a body of horse was to keep the streets clear. "Eat only dry food," said Gullah Jack as the day approached, "parched corn and ground nuts, and when you join us as we pass put this crab claw in your mouth and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... drew back with an obvious shock. "Why, look-a-hyar, you ain't Mr. Briscoe!" he exclaimed insistently, as with a desire to reassure himself. His eyes large, light, distended, were starting out of his head. His jaw quivered violently. The grimy, claw-like hand he extended shook ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... about loose and had no cage, but did exactly what it liked. Its name was Lorrito. It was a very human bird; I saw it eat some bread and milk from its tin one day and then sidle along a pole to a place where there was a towel hanging. It took a corner of the towel in its claw, wiped its beak with it, and then sidled back again. It would sometimes come and see me at breakfast; it got from a chair-back on to the table by dropping its head and putting its round beak on to the table first, making a third leg as it were of its head; it would then waddle ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... minutes, and then alight, keeping up a constant chirping or call. They seem to prefer the wet portions of the prairie. In the breeding seasons the Longspur's song has much of charm, and is uttered like the Skylark's while soaring. The Longspur is a ground feeder, and the mark of his long hind claw, or spur, can often be seen in the new snow. In 1888 the writer saw a considerable flock of Painted Longspurs feeding along the Niagara ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... legs and claws; Ohio, the heart; Pennsylvania, the stomach; South Caroliny, the tail feathers; and Noo Jersey, the balance of the bird,—I saw these parts, for five years dissevered, come together, holdin nigger in one claw, and Post Offises in the other, sayin, "Take em both together; they go in lots." I saw the old Union—the bold, shivelrous Southner a guidin, controllin, and directin the machine, and assoomin to hisself the places uv honor, and the Dimokrat uv the North follerin, like a ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... one claw from the crumbling edge, raising his head delicately; and then the other. For an instant longer he waited, feeling his back heave uncontrollably. Then, dropping noiselessly on to the lead, he fled beneath the sheltering parapet, a noiseless ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... citizens of Baltimore in recognition of his services in the defense of Fort McHenry against the British attack in 1814. The service includes an oval silver tray with a handle on each end, the whole of which is supported on six winged-claw feet. The tray is 29 inches ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... cocoa-nut—that would be an unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched and it has been ascertained that ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... platter stood plump Bess, And all across the green Came scampering in, on wing and claw, Chicken fat and lean: Dorking, Spaniard, Cochin China, Bantams sleek and small, Like feathers blown in a great wind, They came at ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... do not love to pluck the quills, With which I make pens, out of a lion's claw. The King! Should I be bitter 'gainst the King, I shall have scurvy ballads made of me, Sung to the hanging tune. I ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... alternately languished and flourished. The summer cottage also appeared and multiplied; and with it came many of the peculiar features which man elaborates in his struggle toward the finest civilization—afternoon teas, and amateur theatricals, and claw-hammer coats, and a casino, and even ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... if there is any portion of the earth upon which there are so many deadly struggles as upon the earth around the trunk of a tree. Upon this small arena there are battles fierce and wild; here nature is "red in tooth and claw." When a tree is small and tender, countless insects come to feed upon it. Birds come to it to devour these insects. Around the tree are daily almost merciless fights for existence. These death-struggles occur not only in the daytime, but in the night. Mice, rats, and rabbits destroy ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses, and there wants not others that admire them as much? They believe presently that Virgil's soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like this, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one another. Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted than the rest discover it by accident, O Hercules! what uproars, what bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill will of all the grammarians. I knew in ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... something good for your brother, who must remain in that stall and get fat; when he is fat enough I shall eat him." Grethel began to cry, but it was all useless, for the old witch made her do as she wished. So a nice meal was cooked for Hansel, but Grethel got nothing but a crab's claw. ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... granted a place in the household superior to his own. At sight of Mr. Fopling, Ajax would bottle-brush his tail, arch his back, and explode into that ejaculation peculiar to cats. Mr. Fopling feared Ajax, holding him to be rabid and not knowing when he would do those rending deeds of tooth and claw upon him, of which the ejaculation, the arched back, and the bottle-brush ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... us we were too late; the Delaware had frozen up, and we had to keep away, with a South-east wind, for New York. We had a bad time of it, as soon as night came on. The gale increased, blowing directly into the bight, and we had to haul up under close-reefed topsails and reefed foresail, to claw off the land. The weather was very thick, and the night dark, and all we could do was to get round, when the land gave us a hint it was time. This we generally did in five fathoms water. We had to ware, for the brig would not tack under such short canvass, and, of course, lost much ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... indicates the speed; if, when travelling slow, hair is found upon the underwood, the animal passed at night, for in daylight a bear is as careful as a lynx to avoid striking things; if the bear is young or middle aged, the claw marks are sharp and clean cut; if it is old, they are blunt and blurred. The tracks of the male, though larger, are not so round as those of the female, and the male's toes are not only longer and spread farther apart, but the underside of his foot ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... ford; and crossing it himself, he sees they have gone back up the Pilcomayo river. Among them is one showing a shod hoof; but he knows that has not been made by his master's horse, the bar being larger and broader, with the claw more deeply indented. Besides, he sees not the pony's tracks—though they are or were there—and have been trodden out by the ruck of the other animals ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... liked, the amiable giantess could rip up with her claw the tiny bandit who ruins her home; she could crunch her with her mandibles, run her through with her stiletto. She does nothing of the sort, but leaves the robber in peace, to sit quite close, motionless, with her red eyes fixed on the threshold ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... she added in a whisper, for she always fancied Jacko understood, "their eyes aren't open yet, and besides Madam would claw ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... and anxiety fighting for a grip on her heart. Anthony had told his love, raved of her, called her by name. (Anxiety's claw-like fingers began to yield.) The very intensity of his utterance declared his conviction that he must give her up. The exceeding bitterness of his tone rang too true to be ill-founded. (Exultation's clutch ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and I will be at thy side." Said the otter, "If the swimming of foot on the ground of a pool will loose thee, mind me, and I will be at thy side." Said the falcon, "If hardship comes on thee, where swiftness of wing or crook of claw will do good, mind me, and I will be at ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... it—this afternoon for not cashing her cheque,, and she can turn me and my bank into the street to-morrow:' and then, of course, he shall see by my manner the velvet paw is offered as well as the claw. He is pretty sure to ask himself which will suit the ledger best—this cat's friendship and her fourteen thousand pounds, or—an insulted mother's enmity?" And Mrs. Placid's teeth made a little click just audible in ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... down and saw a dozen of the giant crabs lumbering up out of the fungoid jungle from the direction of the great lake. Hideous things they were, with staring, stalked eyes, shining green antennae, polished red shells, claw-armed limbs. Like the one that had passed us in the upper cavern, they wore ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... wafter ready To buoy and to upbear that body great. Potent of beak and claw, of eye-glance steady, Lord of the air, and master of its fate, It seems, it seems, sailing in splendid state Athwart the stretches of the skyey blue. Yet what might be the fleet-winged wanderer's fate. Did either pinion fail? Its flight is true Only when level buoyed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... additional factor that served to add force to the class of omens we are considering. The monsters guarding the approaches to temples and palaces[658] were but one form which this popular belief assumed, and when a colt was observed to have a lion's or a dog's claw, an ocular demonstration was afforded which at once strengthened and served to maintain a belief that at bottom is naught but a crude and primitive form of a theory of evolution. In a dim way man ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... carried far enough, he would rise in his wrath, chase the cat out into the kitchen, around the back-yard, into the kitchen again, and then, perhaps, have it out with the cat under the sink—without the loss of a hair, the use of a claw, or an angry spit or snarl. Punch and the cat slept together, and dined together, in utter harmony; and the master has often gone up to his own bed, after a solitary cigar, and left them purring and snoring in each other's arms. They assisted at each other's toilets, washed ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... the last word at him, and the priest took it up. "Ay, wretch! Wretched man indeed!" he repeated slowly, stretching out his long thin hand and laying it like the claw of some bird of prey on the tradesman's shoulder, which flinched, I saw, under the touch. "How dare you—such as you—meddle with matters of the nobility? Matters that do not concern you? Trouble! I see trouble hanging over this house, ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... swift on horseback threw, Scarce to the Abbot bade adieu; Far less would listen to his prayer, To leave behind the helpless Clare. Down to the Tweed his band he drew, And muttered, as the flood they view, "The pheasant in the falcon's claw, He scarce will yield to please a daw: Lord Angus may the Abbot awe, So Clare shall bide with me." Then on that dangerous ford, and deep, Where to the Tweed Leat's eddies creep, He ventured desperately: ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... house in Curzon Street, ostensibly in Loona Bimberton's honour, with a tiger-skin rug occupying most of the foreground and all of the conversation. She had also already designed in her mind the tiger-claw brooch that she was going to give Loona Bimberton on her next birthday. In a world that is supposed to be chiefly swayed by hunger and by love Mrs. Packletide was an exception; her movements and motives were largely governed ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... at least east and west stand face to face across Nantucket harbor, the cactus holding the sandspit to the north, the heather on the main island to the south. In April the prickly pear is as ugly as sin to the eye with its lobster-claw growth, uglier still to the hand with its steel-pointed thorns, but later it will put forth wonderful yellow, wild-rose like blooms in rich profusion, making up for all its dourness. Professor Asa Gray, the distinguished ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... attended to Blake's injuries, which consisted of a large piece torn from his left forearm, three great teeth-marks in his left thigh, and claw-marks all over his left calf. He was very brave, though bleeding a lot, and walked with our assistance towards the village until one of the orderlies galloped up with the "charpai," or native bed, I had sent for immediately the accident had ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... To disobey the mandate of a chief is at times to court instant death at his hands. At the present time the two most formidable chiefs of the Blackfeet nations are Sapoo-max-sikes, or "The Great Crow's Claw;" and Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu, or "The Great Swan." These men are widely different in their characters; the Crow's Claw being a man whose word once given can be relied on to the death, but the other is represented as a man of colossal size and savage ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... lips with his tongue, Achmet Zek loosened the tie strings which closed the mouth of the pouch, and cupping one claw-like hand poured forth a portion of the contents ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it to weep out thine eyes? Thy kid was a fair one, I own: But the wolf with his cruel claw made her his prize, And to darkness her spirit hath flown. Do the dogs cry? What boots it? In spite of their cries There is left of her ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... during our expedition, and which I feel much pleasure in recording. We saw two emus, and Brown killed one of them, with the assistance of the dog, which received a severe cut in the neck from the sharp claw of the bird. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... sat and shivered. The agony of his injured foot was now asserting itself above the first numbness, and the realization that he was failing to warn the mill hands, that he was only a Jack o' Lantern after all, seized on his young heart and brain like a torturing claw. Despair settled down on him, blacker, more terrible than the coming night. He fancied he could hear the mill hands crash through the death hole, and he called wildly, "Help! Oh, somebody help me!" all the time knowing that the shanties were too far away ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... it is scarce. I do think, however, that the young ladies should not venture out, unless with some rifles in company, for fear of another mischance. We have plenty of lynxes here; but I doubt if they would attack even a child, although they fight when assailed, and bite and claw severely." ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... in its baggy green baize cover was lying. Straight high-backed chairs were pushed against the walls on either side; in front of an open fireplace with a low wooden mantel two small cushioned divans were drawn up, with a claw-footed table between them. A silver salver filled with tall glasses was set carelessly on one edge of the table; a half-open fan of sandal-wood lay beside it; a man's glove had fallen on the hearth just within the tarnished brass fender. Cobwebs depended from ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... of a cheese where he lived in perfect abstinence, an old confessor of high degree, a merry fellow of good appearance, with a fine black skin, firm as a rock, and slightly tonsured on the head by the pat of a cat's claw. He was a grave rat, with a monastical paunch, having much studied scientific authorities by nibbling at their works in parchments, papers, books and volumes of which certain fragments had remained upon his grey beard. In honour of and great reverence for his great virtue and wisdom, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... there is a stream of fresh water. For grubbing up the roots, if not very large size, the assistance of about a dozen cattle would be required, a labor which would be performed by means of the common grubbing machine, an implement in the form of a claw. We will consider that all hands are occupied another month in this manner, and in removing and re-stacking the wood, and turning up the land. The planting out would require but little time and labor. At the end of three months then, one-half of the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... she turned away, when, suddenly, Rose attracted her attention, and she stretched out a thin white bird-claw of a hand and caught ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... am led to think this by seeing how low, how unjust, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; and I would not that what I so much respect, love, and revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... chance with ye, but ye bear me no love, and I know it; and ever ye reach for a knife or a gun, mind that I don't see ye. It's play fair from now on, but show a claw and yer done for if I can ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... is from a finger nail or the claw of a cat, or if the wound is the bite of some animal, you must be sure to have your mother or a doctor clean the wound with strong medicine. You see, nails and claws and teeth are, as a rule, dirty, and have on them germs that will get into the cut and make it ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... prevent the fatigue of dictating two to-morrow. In the first and best place, I am very near recovered; that is, though still a mummy, I have no pain left, nor scarce any sensation of gout except in my right hand, which is still in complexion and shape a lobster's claw. Now, unless any body can prove to me that three weeks are longer than five months and a half, they will hardly convince me that the bootikins are not a cure for fits of the gout and a Very short cure, though they cannot prevent it: nor perhaps is it to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... as the friend of the distressed; the salamander, living in fire, typifies the strong passions, natural, yet destructive to their victim; the young stork, carrying the old one, illustrates filial piety; the crane, which, according to Pliny, holds a stone in its claw to avert sleep, is a fit emblem of watchfulness; the pomegranate, king of fruits, wears a regal crown; the crocodile, symbol of hypocrisy, sheds deceitful tears. In short, almost everything that was in the heavens ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... dog, gravely, sitting down on a large flower-pot nearby, "I think, as we have been wanting to fight this out for some time,—indeed, I may say, almost since time began,—we had better allow every one to have a tooth and a claw in it. Then, perhaps, this matter will be ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be stupid, a trifle touched, perhaps, from suffering, for she laid a skinny claw upon O'Reilly's shoulder and warned him earnestly: "Look out for Cobo. You have heard about him, eh? Well, he is the cause of all our misery. He hunted us from place to place, and it was for him that I put that hump on her ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... see," explained the young woodsman. "When a gopher goes down his hole, he simply draws in his flippers and slides, but when he wants to get out he has to claw his way up. You'll see the first hole has the sand pressed smooth at the entrance, while the sand in the other hole shows the mark of the flippers. That third hole is easy, too; you can see the coon tracks if you look close, and you will notice that the claws point outward. The ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and blinked up uncertainly from under the sodden brim of his hat. His dirty claw-like hands clutched his coat together in an instinctive gesture of concealment. He seemed disturbed and even rather offended at ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... or anything that has come near decayed meat or unhealthy gums or noses or teeth. This is why a cut or scratch made by a knife that has been used for cutting meat, or by a dirty finger-nail, or by the claw of a cat, or by the tooth of a rat, is often likely to fester and "run." Animals like rats and dogs and cats often feed upon badly decayed meat; and hence their teeth, or claws, are quite likely to be smeared with the germs that cause decay, and these ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... changing to a tone of intense horror, while he looked the picture of abject terror, his eyeballs rolling and his teeth chattering as before. "Duppy come catchee me, for suah! Dere he am comin' up wid him long claw—dere he ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... this is the foundation and objects what is called the Natural System; and which is foundation of distinction of true and adaptive characters{148}. Now this wonderful fact of hand, hoof, wing, paddle and claw being the same, is at once explicable on the principle of some parent-forms, which might either be or walking animals, becoming through infinite number of small selections adapted to various conditions. We know that proportion, size, shape of bones ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... bee-parasites,—said the Scarabee, showing me a box full of glass slides, each with a specimen ready mounted for the microscope. I was most struck with one little beast flattened out like a turtle, semi-transparent, six-legged, as I remember him, and every leg terminated by a single claw hooked like a lion's and as formidable for the size of the creature as that ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... gale, instead of breaking, raged more furiously than ever. Closer and closer the schooner drifted towards the shore. It would have been madness to carry more sail; for already her lee bulwarks were under water, and yet I dared not take any off her with the slightest hopes of being able to claw off shore. The seas came breaking on board, deluging our decks, and, had not the hatches been firmly secured, would quickly have swamped us. I was at the helm, with Charley White by my side, my boys and the two men having lashed themselves to the weather rigging. No one appeared to be terror-stricken, ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... anything in all the world save her, and begs that he may be sent away to the steppes along the Volga, to live a free kazak life, where he may lay his "turbulent head" on a Mussulman's spear (in the fights with the Tatars of Kazan is what is meant), where the vultures may claw out his tearful eyes, and his gray bones be washed by the rain, and his wretched dust, without burial, may be scattered to the four quarters of the compass. Tzar Ivan Vasilievitch laughs, advises him to send gifts to his Alyona, and celebrate the wedding. The lifeguardsman then confesses ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... doubt in my mind that he was the man whom I had seen on the road the night of the murder. I was close enough to him now to look more particularly at his hand, and I saw that the two first fingers had completely disappeared, and that the rest of it was no more than a claw. It was not likely there could be two men in our neighbourhood thus disfigured. Moreover, the general build of the man, the tweed suit of grey that he was wearing, the attitude in which he stood, all convinced me that this was the person I had seen at the cross-roads, ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... universe—does it not? and my function is to paint—and as a painter I have a conception which is altogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as a subject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards that picture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth in the shape ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... skull, his right hand holds an instrument which deserves a passing comment. It is a trephine, a surgical implement for cutting round pieces out of broken skulls, so as to get at the fragments which have been driven in, and lift them up. It has a handle like that of a gimlet, with a claw like a hammer, to lift with, I suppose, which last contrivance I do not see figured in my books. But the point I refer to is this: the old instrument, the trepan, had a handle like a wimble, what we call a brace or bit-stock. The trephine is not mentioned at all in Peter Lowe's ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... hood, and prevents the rainwater from running down into it. It is a snug and pretty retreat, and a very safe one, I think. I doubt whether the driving snow ever reaches him, and no predatory owl could hook him out with its claw. Near town or in town the English sparrow would probably drive him out; but in the woods, I think, he is rarely molested, though in one instance I knew him to be dispossessed ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Aylward; "she is yellow as a kite's claw, and would carry as many men as there are pips in ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had better mind their soundings, though!" said the old navy-man, with a stitch in his side and a lump in his throat, from loud utterance; "five fathoms is every inch of it where they be now, and the tide making strong, and precious little wind to claw off with. Jem Prater! Jem Prater! Oar up, and give signal. Ah, he's too far off to do any good. In five minutes more they'll be on the White Pig, where no ship ever got off again. Oh, thank the Lord, mates, thank the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever! The other froggy is stuck ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... startled by the wildest scream of terror she had ever heard. The tense thread of human resolution snapped; wills and nerves broke down, and a hundred women suspended their irons or dropped them. It was Mary who had screamed so terribly, and Saxon saw a strange black animal flapping great claw-like wings and nestling on Mary's shoulder. With the scream, Mary crouched down, and the strange creature, darting into the air, fluttered full into the startled face of a woman at the next board. This woman promptly screamed ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... suns burn to brand: Her seas yawn to engulf him: her rocks rise to crush: And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush On their startled invader. In lone Malabar, Where the infinite forest spreads breathless and far, 'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy of claw (Striped and spotted destroyers!) he sees, pale with awe, On the menacing edge of a fiery sky, Grim Doorga, blue-limb'd and red-handed, go by, And the first thing he worships is Terror. Anon, Still impell'd by necessity hungrily on, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... considerably greater projection. Placed above it, at intervals, were balls of marble, which, once of pure white, had now caught the time-worn hue of the edifice itself. At each corner of the front and wings, the balls were surmounted by the family device—the eagle with extended wing. One claw closed over the stone, and the bird rode it proudly an' it had been the globe. The portico, of a pointed Gothic, would have seemed heavy, had it not been lightened by glass doors, the vivid colours of which were not of modern date. These admitted to a capacious hall, where, reposing ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... catechised the big one, and finding the situation unpleasant, made him reanimate the corpse of the student and walk it about town all the afternoon. The malignant demon however, was free at sunset, and let the corpse drop dead in the middle of the market place. The people recognized it, found the claw-marks and traces of strangling, suspected the fact, and Agrippa had to ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... knees, her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned, but absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump, strong arms, a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a claw head in her hand. She was taking up the carpet. Grace Van Horne, Captain Eben Hammond's ward, who had called to see if there was anything she might do to help, was removing towels, tablecloths, and the like from the drawers in a tall "high-boy," folding them and placing them in an old and battered ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that, you say more truth than you know, foster-brother. He is a wolf, and I am a wolf's cub, and you are no better. We are all a pack of ravening beasts, we Northmen, that have no higher ambition than to claw and use our teeth. Talk of high-mindedness to such—bah!" He flung his arms apart in loathing; then, in a motion as boyishly weary as it was boyishly petulant, crossed them on the table before him and pillowed his head ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... well, my father, for my baby cries and is alone in a little box in the ground. If I could claw my way to her with my hands—but my ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... were suffering before our eyes. None of us has understood. I'll hire the finest detective in Chicago, and we'll go to work together. This is nothing compared with things people do find out. We'll go at it, beak and claw, and we'll show you ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... that handkerchief of hers as if her hand was a bird's claw. I can't get a blue jay or a canary out of my head when I see her. Did you ever see a bird scratch its eye ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... of the jaw, implies a particular form in its condyles; implies also limbs fit for seizing and holding prey; therefore implies claws, a certain structure of the leg-bones, a certain form of shoulder-blade. Summing up he says, that "the claw, the scapula, the condyle, the femur, and all the other bones, taken separately, will give the tooth or one another; and by commencing with any one, he who had a rational conception of the laws of the organic economy, could reconstruct ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... morose or gloomy from his years on the trained-animal stage and in Harris Collins's college of pain, but he was sobered, subdued. The spring and the spontaneity had gone out of him. Just as the leopard had claw-marked his shoulder so that damp and frosty weather made the pain of the old wound come back, so was his mind marked by what he had gone through. He liked Jerry, was glad to be with him and to run with him; but it was Jerry who was ever in the lead, who ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... 'clutcht' for a long time 'sticks strangely' in Crispinus' throat; it is only thrown up with the greatest difficulty. In Hamlet (act v. sc. i, in the second verse of the grave-digger's song) we hear, 'Hath claw'd me in his clutch. In the original song, which is here travestied, the words are, 'Hath claw'd me with ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... When I came in at eleven o'clock to-night they followed me to the door in a stream, and I stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me. Bah! The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me with her paws. The claw caught my hand and drew blood in a thin line. The others danced sideways into the darkness, screeching, as though I had done them an injury. I believe these cats really hate me. Perhaps they are only ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... or retuse), 18 to 25 mm. long and about as wide at base, the upper surface almost plane and smooth, except that it is more or less pulverulent and usually bears a small tomentose pulvillus (often evanescent later) just behind the claw-like tip: flowers rose-color: fruit elongated- oval and reddish. (Ill. Lem. ...
— The North American Species of Cactus, Anhalonium, and Lophophora • John M. Coulter
... starry plains. The Star Chief invited all his people to a feast, and, when they had assembled, he proclaimed aloud, that each one might take of the earthly gifts such as he liked best. A very strange confusion immediately arose. Some chose a foot, some a wing, some a tail, and some a claw. Those who selected tails or claws were changed into animals, and ran off; the others assumed the form of birds, and flew away. Waupee chose a white hawk's feather. His wife and son followed his example, when each one became a white ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... Tobacco is nothing without Money, or Money without Pride, and Pride is but a weakling without Wantonness, nor is Wantonness aught without Sloth, nor Sloth without Hypocrisy, nor Hypocrisy without Thoughtlessness. Wherefore, now," said Lucifer, lifting his infernal hoofs on their claw-ends, "to give my own opinion: however excellent all these may be, I have a friend better suited than all to our foe of Britain." Then could I see all the archfiends open wide their horrid mouths upon Lucifer in eager expectation as to what this could possibly be, while I too was as anxious as ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... that on the Saeter feed. Still, with scarce conscious hold he clung To the white cat, that closely hung Seeking her refuge in his arm, Her shelter in the wild alarm— And who can tell how oft his moan Was soothed by her soft purring tone? Time keeping with retracted claw, Or patting with her velvet paw; Although of home and friends bereft, Still this one comforter was left, So lithe, so swift, so soft, so white, She might have seemed his guardian sprite. The rude Danes deemed her such; And whispered tales of 'disir' bound ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... back to the door, where the aroma was finest and strongest. There he tore at the lowest bar with tooth and claw, but it did not move. He had the aroma and nothing more, and no big, strong wolf can live on odors only. The vague disappointment grew into a positive rage. He felt instinctively that he could not reach the good ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... from his window to the sidewalk well in front of her. She did not see it flash downward but she heard it ring upon the walk. She rushed forward and twice kicked it away from her in her frenzy to get it. When her bare hand—or was it a claw?—at last closed upon it, she gave a low scream, looked slyly and fearfully about, then ran as if death were at ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... "you've got to whoop her up some degrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villain kidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks out of the atmosphere, and scream: "Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!" What she would actually do would be to call up the police by 'phone, ring for some strong tea, and get the little darling's photo out, ready for the reporters. When you get your villain in a corner—a stage ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... This person wore a black gown; a pair of huge, broad-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of a thin, long nose, and in his claw-like fingers he held a vial, the contents of which he stirred slowly. His aspect was that of ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a word. He remained motionless for a long moment, his eyes pale and steady, his right hand like a claw. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... organs, which might have been caused on Lamarckian as well as on the Darwinian hypothesis. The running of a fowl after its head is chopped off is an example of the same kind of thing, and this is certainly not useful. The detachment itself of claw and tail is no doubt ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... small hole from one side into and through the other, commencing half an inch back of the fissure on each side; then drive a light horseshoe nail through the hole and clinch it. Pare the injured claw as short ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... that the figure of his chum, now lying prostrate on the floor of the cavern with the head extending outward, was being drawn away from him by the claw which ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... I strove To coll an ash I saw, And he in trust received my love; Till with my soft green claw I cramped and bound him as I wove . . . Such ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... sight. Now a bright beam escaping through some chance opening in the leaves, quivered along the path, and scared the wolf in his midnight wanderings. Out again upon the open track through the soft grass, and winding around the wild maguey, or under the claw-shaped thorns of the musquit. A deer sprung from his lair among the soft flowers—looked back for a moment at the strange intruders, and frightened at the gleaming steel, dashed off into the thicket. The woods are not silent by night, as in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... should stir abroad as his manner was. Now the bear had an inkling of the man, and got somewhat slow to move off. Biorn waxed very sleepy where he lay, and cannot wake up, and just at this time the beast betakes himself from his lair; now he sees where the man lies, and, hooking at him with his claw, he tears from him the shield and throws it down over the rocks. Biorn started up suddenly awake, takes to his legs and runs home, and it was a near thing that the beast gat him not. This his fellows knew, for they ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... to claw 'old of the bloody doors every time you goes in and out,' snarled Crass, 'and you could 'ave put yer tools on the floor instead of makin' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... his wing as they ast him to sing an' he tried fer t' clear out his throat; He hemmed an' he hawed an' be hawked an' he cawed But he couldn't deliver a note. The swallow was there an' he ushered each pair with his linsey an' claw hammer coat. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... raised my "grit," and I never flinched a bit, And my nerves they got as strong as steel or brass; And when I fired again I was sure that I had hit, For I saw the skulking devil "claw the grass." ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for backing from the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of dead water round him, from which they ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... sort of little cupboard under the back seat of his auto, and brought out a parrot's cage. In it was a green bird, which, as soon as it came out into the sunlight, began preening its feathers and moving about, climbing up on the wires, partly by its claw feet and partly ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... of it! I was sure of it!" shouted Springall; "the cloak, the hat—all! Now will I be even with thee for hanging me over the cliff, like a poor fish in a heron's claw, and ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... traps, I caught a glimpse of traces of better times. There was a plain wooden mantelpiece, a wide fireplace with big brass andirons, a sideboard with and without brass handles and a limited number of claw feet,—which if brought under the spell of the scraper and varnish-pot might once more regain its lost estate,—a corner-cupboard built into the wall, half full of fragments of old china, and, to do justice to the major's former statement, there was also a pair of dull old mahogany ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... then," said the little man in red, "here is a silver button to drop into your gun instead of a bullet. Wait you here, and about sunset there will come a great black bird flying. In one claw it carries a feather cap and in the other a round stone. Shoot me the silver button at that bird, and if your aim is good it will drop the feather cap and the pebble. Bring them to me to the great town-gate and I will pay you a dollar for ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... destruction for destruction's sake. Fire is savage, and so, even after all these centuries, are we, at heart. Our civilisation is but as the aforesaid crust that encloses the old planetary flames. To destroy is still the strongest instinct of our nature. Nature is still 'red in tooth and claw,' though she has begun to make fine flourishes with tooth-brush and nail-scissors. Even the mild dog on my hearth-rug has been known to behave like a wolf to his own species. Scratch his master and you will find the caveman. But the scratch must be a sharp ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... at the country dance in all his glory. He was attired in his master's old claw-hammer coat, a very buff vest, a high standing collar the corners of which stood out six inches from his face, striped pantaloons that fitted as tightly as a kid glove, and he wore number fourteen shoes. He looked as though he were born to call the figures ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... which is engraved "515." The ground is azure; the motto "Admajorem Dei glorium." On the standard N. is an "inflamed heart," in red, with two wings, surrounded by a laurel crown. The ground is white. The flag G. bears a double-headed eagle, crowned, holding a sword in his right claw, and in his left a bloody heart. Ground is sea green. The flag U. has an ox, sable (black), on a golden ground. On the sides of the enneagen are nine tents, and on its angles nine pendants, each belonging to its appropriate tent. The pendants are distinguished by numerals, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... of woman's wakeness in ye. Oh, my cat-o'-cats! let any man throw her from him, which way he will, she's on her legs and at him again, tooth and claw. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... in which were kept the linen and wearing apparel, low beds inlaid with ivory and metal and provided with coverings and a thin mattress, copper or wooden stands to support lamps or vases, square stools on four legs united by crossbars, armchairs with lions' claw feet, resembling the Egyptian armchairs in outline, and making us ask if they were brought into Chaldaea by caravans, or made from models which had come from some other country. A few rare objects of artistic character might be found, which bore witness to a certain taste ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... were lying on the smoking dung-hill; some of them were scratching with one claw in search of worms, while the cock stood up proudly among them. Every moment he selected one of them, and walked round her with a slight cluck of amorous invitation. The hen got up in a careless way as she received his attentions, and only supported herself on her legs and spread out her wings; ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... a sort of fascination, and had turned his head sufficiently to watch every movement of his victim. Then he started downward, his whitish belly was turned upward, while he continued to beat and claw the air ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... plenty of time! (Bows to the ground before his father.) Father, dear father, forgive me too,—fiend that I am! You told me from the first, when I took to bad ways, you said then, "If a claw is caught, the bird is lost!" I would not listen to your words, dog that I was, and it has turned out as you said! ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... he must go on. Some ghastly, unnatural thing was clogging his brain; not only in a mental way, but clogging it until there was physical hurt and pain, an awful tightness—something—if he could only reach it with his fingers and claw it away! There was black madness here, and a pain insufferable—a damnable impotence, robbing him of even the power, the faculty to think or reason, or to make himself understand in any logical degree the ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... little Pussy, And then she will purr, And thus show her thanks For my kindness to her; I'll not pinch her ears, Nor tread on her paw, Lest I should provoke her To use her sharp claw; I never will vex her, Nor make her displeased, For Pussy don't like To be worried ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... invariably testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... The claw of the tender bird Finds lodgment here; Dye-winged butterflies poise; Emmet and beetle steer Their busy course; the bee Drones, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... The old man saluted Langley and asked in his own language for a pipeful of tobacco. Langley always carried some loose leaves broken up in his pocket, so he at once pulled some of these out and half filled the claw-like hand outstretched to receive them. The old native was voluble in his thanks. There was a large ant-heap close to the one on which he had been sitting, and on which he reseated himself while filling his pipe. Against this Langley ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... felt that the devil had him by the hair, as the saying is; he felt, too, that the hair was being twisted round the pitiless red claw. Startled and afraid lest he should sell his honesty for such a trifle, he answered the diabolical suggestion by another no ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... revolving, plunged forward, through a succession of wallowing waves, over a wild half-mile of ledges, and joined itself to a wider and mightier stream. The wolf, drenched, shivering, and appalled by the tumult, clung to his refuge by tooth and claw; and the islet, being well compacted, held together through the wrenching plunges, and carried its burden safely forth upon the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... country look at the decorative art of France under the grand monarch, under Louis the Fourteenth; the gaudy gilt furniture writhing under a sense of its own horror and ugliness, with a nymph smirking at every angle and a dragon mouthing on every claw. Unreal and monstrous art this, and fit only for such periwigged pomposities as the nobility of France at that time, but not at all fit for you or me. We do not want the rich to possess more beautiful things but the poor to create more beautiful things; ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... smiling at the Baroness's clever coquetry, when I decided to follow the inspirations of my heart, instead of choosing selfish motives as my guide. Every time I took her hand when dancing with her, I expected to feel a little claw ready to pierce the cold glove. But, while waiting for the scratch, it was a very soft, velvety little hand that was given me; and I, who willingly lent myself to her deception, did not feel very much duped. It was evident that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... with comic courage. [Then turning on her like any examining professor.] Now which do you believe ... that Man is the reformer, or that the Time brings forth such men as it needs and lobster-like can grow another claw? ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... rejoins Mr. Sam Blowaway, a leader of the national Young American party, 'pears how, if your old chap over there attempts that game, he'll get himself boots deep into a scrape he'll not find it so easy to claw out on.' And Sam got right up, and looked brimstone at him, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... hereditary aristocracy. In religion, his inherited belief, rooted in his deepest fibers, early found itself confronted by the discoveries of modern science, which at first seemed to him to proclaim that the universe is much what it seemed to the young Carlyle, a remorseless monster, 'red in tooth and claw,' scarcely thinkable as the work of a Christian God who cares for man. Tennyson was too sincere to evade the issue, and after years of inner struggle he arrived at a positive faith in the central principles ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... kill a fat ram for you and we have done as he commanded." Declan said, "Our Master is Jesus Christ and may He show us what it is that connects the ministry of Satan with this meat and preserve thy servants from eating forbidden food." As he spoke thus Declan saw in the meat the claw of a dog, for, without intending it, they had boiled one quarter of the dog with its paw adhering; they thought they had buried it (the incriminating limb) with the other paws. Declan exclaimed, "This is not a sheep's but a dog's foot." When the ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... added a shining dollar to it, and stepping to the door where the palsied beggar stood mumbling and whining a pitiful hard luck tale, she pressed the silver into the leathery, claw-like hand, smiled a sympathetic smile and bade the old ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and every kind of trick and fun, not to leave them till the night would be over, but he refused them all, and shook them off, and went to the door. But as he put his foot over the threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his hand that was thin and withered like a bird's claw on Hanrahan's hand, and said: 'It is not Hanrahan, the learned man and the great songmaker, that should go out from a gathering like this, on a Samhain night. And stop here, now,' he said, 'and play a hand with me; and here is an old pack of cards has done its ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats |
