"Clutch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... miles after leaving Varesnes it was retreat—rapid, undisguised, and yet with a plan. Thousands of men, scores of guns and transport vehicles, hundreds of civilians caught in the last rush, all struggling to evade the mighty pincers' clutch of the German masses who, day after day, were crushing our attempts to rally against their weight and fury. Unless collectedly, in order, and with intercommunications unbroken, we could pass behind the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... watching the huge black shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal of coal barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water below, and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to the barges. Just one or two minute black featureless figures of men toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not seem to be controlling them but only moving about among them. These gas-works have a big chimney that belches a lurid flame into the night, a livid shivering ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... was swift and strong, and, good swimmer as he was, it was no easy task which Alleyne had set himself. To clutch at Tranter and to seize him by the hair was the work of a few seconds, but to hold his head above water and to make their way out of the current was another matter. For a hundred strokes he did not seem to gain an inch. Then ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... appearance. The like might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; aye, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him: if, for instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim; or the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, these things ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... out a hand and patted his neck, and in doing so secured a firm clutch of the mane in his hand; the next instant his foot was in the stirrup, and the next he had vaulted into the saddle, before the horse had ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a basement chop-house, another day approaching a lounger on an east-side wharf. But in both cases the premonition of failure checked him on the brink of avowal. His dread of being taken for a man in the clutch of a fixed idea gave him an unnatural keenness in reading the expression of his interlocutors, and he had provided himself in advance with a series of verbal alternatives, trap-doors of evasion from the first dart of ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... irritating amiability. I began to understand what an annoyance it must be to have a bough up there that you couldn't flick at with your stick as you passed by, and that even when weighed down by its summer greenery would bemock you if you made a casual clutch at its foliage, and laugh at you in its leaves. I went inside and returned with a step-ladder and an umbrella and a carving-knife, and I stood on the summit of the ladder and made abortive slashes at space with my right hand, while the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:— I have thee not!—and yet I see thee still! Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind—a false creation, Proceeding from a heat-oppressed brain? ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... gritted through his teeth, as he jabbed the key with frantic haste into the lock. "I'll fix you for this!" He made a clutch at her throat, as he ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... tossed the ball high in the air between them. They leaped as far as they could; but Sawed-Off's enormous height carried him far beyond the other man, and, giving the ball a smart slap, he sent it directly into the clutch of Reddy, who had run on and was waiting to receive it half over his shoulder. Finding himself "covered" by the opposing forward, he passed the ball quickly under the other man's arm across to Heady, who had run down the other side of the floor. Heady received the ball without ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... Billie's day for bumping into people—for at the foot of the stairs she had to clutch the banister to keep from colliding with Miss Walters, the beautiful and much loved ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... we sought one of the many radiating centres of festivity in the neighbourhood. She was very tired and cold,—so tired she seemed hardly to have the spirit to eat, and evidently the cold had taken tight clutch of her lungs, for she had a cough that went to my heart to hear, and her face was ghastly pale. When I had persuaded her to drink a little wine, she grew more animated and spots of suspicious colour came into her cheeks. So far she had seemed all but oblivious ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... breaking free from all restraint, rose up in rebellious desire. It was a slow agony of temptation, in which the weapons of faith fell, one by one, from his faltering hands, in which he lay inert in the clutch of passion, in which he beheld with horror his own ignominy, without having the courage to raise his little finger to free himself ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... Stoughton Page's reputation as an automobile driver would not be undamaged in the estimation of at least one person. But for that and for what must be when the crisis arrived—well, it was inevitable. I threw in the clutch and drew out of the stable. At any rate, there were the hours back of me, and Margery was—Margery. There was sweetness in this thought, and infinite ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... is not all. In our own country the British land shark has made his appearance. His vile clutch, which our forefathers unwrenched in the strength of their Colonial greatness, has again been fastened upon our throat. The following table will show the extent to which the parasite has insinuated himself into our vital parts. Let the good people of this country—who should ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... pointed down at his feet as he spoke, and Maurice, turning his gaze in that quarter, instantly saw something that caused him to draw in a quick breath and involuntarily clutch the gun with a ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... the rear wheel by a chain. The car would hold two people, the seat being suspended on posts and the body on elliptical springs. There were two speeds—one of ten and the other of twenty miles per hour—obtained by shifting the belt, which was done by a clutch lever in front of the driving seat. Thrown forward, the lever put in the high speed; thrown back, the low speed; with the lever upright the engine could run free. To start the car it was necessary to turn the motor over ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... you to leave me alone," said Priam, rebelling with all the pride of his nature against this clutch of the law. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... standing, and had had a reading-desk placed on the platform, adapted to his own very tall stature, so that when I came to get his manuscript it was almost above my head. Though rather disconcerted, I was determined not to go back without it, and so made a half jump, and a clutch at the book, when every leaf of it (they were not fastened together), came fluttering separately down about me. I hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly on all-fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered leaves, and retreating with them, held them out in dismay to poor Thackeray, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... brother-in-law. "Well, well. So far as in me lies, I'll do as I'm told. But I insist upon plain English. I'm not going to be suddenly yelled at to 'double-clutch,' or 'feel the brake,' or 'close the throttle,' or something. It makes me want to burst into tears. That fellow who was teaching me asked me, without any warning and in the middle of some sheep, what I should do if one of my 'big ends were to run out.' I said I should consult a specialist, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... can feel, When the winds batter, how these parchments clatter, And the beautiful tenor that's ever ringing When thro' the Seaweed the breeze is singing: And you should know, I know a great deal, When the bacchi arcanum I clutch and gripe, I know a great deal of wind and weather By hearing my own cheeks slap together A-pulling up ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... He pays me no manner of attention. [Looking off the stage.] I wonder whether any of the hermits are about here. [Seeing the King.] Kind Sir, could you come hither a moment and help me to release the young lion from the clutch of this child, who is teasing him ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that there was some one else in the world, but he could not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He sat down to ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... temper, Byrd laid down his napkin, and rose with an attempt at dignity somewhat marred by the viselike clutch of the swivel chair ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... killed if he did not stop the machine, the lad threw off the clutch and applied the brakes. Then, in the center of a large force of Germans, who came rushing in upon them, the lad stood up in the machine, and, raising ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... mistress, and realising that Fate had not been willing and that she came but as a guest and Countess of Dunstanwolde. Oh, it was a bitter, relentless thing; and why should it have been—for what wise purpose or what cruel one? And with a maddening clutch about his heart he saw again the tragic searching in her eyes when she had said, "Then you have known me long, your Grace," and afterwards, so soft and strangely slow, "Then you might have been one of those who came to my birthnight feast, ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... command, a virtual dictatorship might work great things for the North. But whence is he likely to emerge? Hardly from the midst of this vast political and military turmoil, where every man is struggling and straining to clutch at the veriest shred ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... reassured the negro came a step or two forward, and made a feeble clutch at the reins, which dropped from his grasp when the roosting turkeys stirred uneasily on ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... I fell asleep; and when, as day was breaking, I woke once more and remembered all that had befallen me yestereve, I had to clutch my shoulders and temples or ever I was certain that indeed my eyes were open on another day. And what a day! My heart overflowed as I saw, look which way I might, no perils, none, nothing, verily nothing that was not well-ordered and brought to a good end, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as the bride shudders, the bridegroom's hand compresses hers with a sudden vigorous clutch, as if he feared to lose her, ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... to my heart—a deadly thrill ran through every limb—from shame and indignation, no doubt; my vision became obscure; it seemed as if my soul was leaving my body, and I fell forward fainting, and dragged her down to the bottom of the water in a mortal clutch. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, you know, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... cruel green depths, when his ears were bursting and his eyes starting from their sockets, he found himself once more at the surface, breathing in great gulps of the blessed air, and alone. For a moment he could not believe it, but gazed wildly about him, expecting each instant to feel the awful clutch that should again drag him under. He was nearly exhausted, and so weak that had not a floating oar come within his reach he must quickly have sunk, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... little clutch in her excitement. She had always lived in the basement kitchen of a house in Mortimer Street and had never had reason to hope she ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such: Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek, Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... days at least that seem to start the sap in the trees and the blood in the veins, when the first bluebird is heard, and we get one swift, delicious glimpse of the good time coming. But this year the cold only takes a sharper clutch. At its average, our northern winter has a fierce and almost merciless persistence. Those first days of spring are hardly more than the taste of freedom with which the cat tantalizes the mouse. It is this lingering close of winter that is hard to ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... loosened, probably by the blow he received at the outset, and there were finger-nail dents on the throat as from the grasp of a strangling hand. That his opponent should have disengaged himself from his clutch was matter of extreme surprise to all who had experienced submersion, and knew its meaning. Even to those who have never been under water against their will, the phrase "the grip of a drowning man" has a terribly convincing sound. That this opponent rose to the surface alive, and escaped, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... clutch at the child's hand made the child cry out. He checked her with a savage word, and while she whimpered unheeded, he stood motionless, sheltering himself behind a girl with a large hat who stood in front of him, ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... better grip on it. It slipped a wee bit more. Blacky started down towards the ground. But he wasn't quick enough. Striped Chipmunk, watching Blacky from the old stone wall, saw something white drop from Blacky's claws. He saw Blacky dash after it and clutch at it only to miss it. Then the white thing struck a branch of an old apple tree, bounced off and fell to the ground. Blacky ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... half round and looked straight at me. For a long second he stared—sitting half upright, his long, fine hands clasping the arms of the chair with a clutch like steel. He said not a word. Then ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and cutlery on the saloon tables crashed to starboard. Were it not for the restraint of the fiddles everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or two minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The Sirdar, with a frenzied bound, tried to turn ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... the arches, in the dusk of the mosque itself, and from man to man emotion passed like a spark upon the wind. The crowd grew denser, there came a suspense, a tension. It gained upon all, it laid its clutch upon Shere Ali. He ceased to think, even upon his injuries, he was possessed with expectancy. And then a man kneeling beside him interrupted his prayers and began to ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... upward climb and fight to slip the clutch of the ship's suction, in the middle of a heavy sea he managed to get off his clothes, and set to swimming, whither he did not know, a ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... try to escape," I once asked an exile at Sredni-Koylmsk, "and make your way across Bering Straits to America?" For I was aware that, once in the United States, a Russian "political" is safe from the clutch of ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... of heaven, I have made many things, but this is my masterpiece. If I and all my works were swept away, leaving only this thing, it would be enough. In the fiftieth century it will still have its clutch on man, yea, and to the ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... was the musical enthusiasm called out. When they returned Schumann's malady returned with double force, and on February 27, 1854, he attempted to end his misery by jumping into the Rhine. Madness had seized him with a clutch which was never to be released, except at short intervals. Every possible care was lavished on him by his heartbroken and devoted wife, and the assiduous attention of the friends who reverenced the genius now for ever quenched. The last two years of his life were spent in the private ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... liberty they allowed was the liberty to believe as they believed. Others were wrong, they were right—therefore it was right for them to take the wrong in hand and set them right. They were filled with fear, and fear is the finish of everything upon which it gets a clutch. Were it not for fear man's religion would reduce itself to a healthful emotional exercise, a beautiful intermittent impulse. Institutional religion is founded on the monstrous assumption that man is a fully developed creature, and has the ability, when ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... like a cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the canvas like a volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made the giddy rush through the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch was broken. One hand was torn loose from its hold. The other lingered desperately for a moment, and followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some way he managed to save himself with his legs. He was ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... ship's papers not being ready. Such a scene at the dock gates. Not a sailor will join till the last moment; and then, just as the ship forges ahead through the narrow pass, beds and baggage fly on board, the men half tipsy clutch at the rigging, the captain swears, the women scream and sob, the crowd cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand still and cry outright, regardless of ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... midnight fog, moved there so slow, He did nor stay, nor go; Condemning thoughts, like sad eclipses, scowl Upon his soul, And clouds of crying witnesses without Pursued him with one shout. Yet digged the mole, and, lest his ways be found, Worked under ground, Where he did clutch his prey. But one did see That policy. Churches and altars fed him; perjuries Were gnats and flies; It rained about him blood and tears; but he Drank ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... ain't all as should be counted; but then, ye don't count all the folks an' happenin's that pass ye in yer wakin' hours. But when a dream, or a person, or an idee comes along, as means a comfort or a strengthener, I take it that it is a sort o' duty t' clutch it, an' make it real. When ye ain't got nothin' better, dreams is powerful upliftin' at times. Gum!" David drew his shoulders up and plunged his hands in his pockets, as if about to draw comfort ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... her hands a shoe, a tiny, dainty shoe, with embroidery of pearls and flowers,—the shoe of her beautiful mistress that was. For she had sought to grasp Ko-Ngai by the foot as she leaped, but had only been able to clutch the shoe, and the pretty shoe came off in her hand; and she continued to stare at it like ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... there had been no one there, and forced myself to investigate. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and step by step advanced clear to the back window, and looked out. Then, without the slightest warning, something was thrown over my head, and I was utterly helpless in the vice-like clutch of an arm. I cannot explain how startled, how helpless I was. It occurred so suddenly I could not even cry out, could scarcely struggle. I was instantly stifled, and left weak as a child. I know I did make an effort to break away, but the cloth was clutched closer ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... Horace felt something clutch at his heart. Fledra's radiant face rose before his mental vision, and he swallowed hard, as he thought of her relation to the brutal ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... commonly used, but as only two are employed on tricycles, I shall leave the third till I come to the special machine for which it is necessary. The most easy to understand is the clutch, a model of which I have on the table. If each main wheel is driven by means of one of these, though compelled to go forward by the crankshaft, it is yet free to go faster without restraint. By this means "double driving" is effected in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... And that's the long and (chiefly) the short of it, And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it; A two-year-old with a taste for a toy, And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it, And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it; And a short stout couple of sturdy legs As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs; And a jolly round head, so fairly round You could easily roll it, Or take it and bowl it With never a ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... fellow, is just what they're fond off And remember, them that are stupid, or the women folk, as can't put their money into use themselves, they take it to the bank, and they there, deuce take 'em, clutch hold of it, and with this money they fleece the people. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... find his sleep less sweet For music in some neighboring street, Nor rustling hear in every breeze The laurels of Miltiades. Honor and blessings on his head While living, good report when dead, Who, not too eager for renown, Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown! ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... is that loyal and faithful servant, touching whom a brief while ago I propounded to you my question, whom her own folk held none too dear, but cast out into the open street as a thing vile and no longer good for aught, but I took thence, and by my careful tendance wrested from the clutch of death; whom God, regardful of my good will, has changed from the appalling aspect of a corpse to the thing of beauty that you see before you. But for your fuller understanding of this occurrence, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... although he had not given her his promise—foreseeing even then the possibility of this black hour—he had meant, at the moment, to turn his back for ever on the seductive thing which whispers such sweet, such deliriously fatal promises to the man in the clutch of any agony he does not know how ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... bronco was carried down into a swirl of deep, angry water. So swift was the undertow that Powder River was dragged from beneath its rider. Bob caught at the mane of the horse and clung desperately to it with one hand. A second or two, and this was torn from his clutch. ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... people that he understands and is able to satisfy their needs. More effective than any moral house- cleaning in securing the tenure of an administration is its efficiency in promoting better living and working conditions, improving opportunities for recreation and education, or loosening the clutch of the predatory "interests." Moreover, the politician must be a good mixer, willing to work with those who do not share his idealism, good- natured and conciliatory, ready to postpone the accomplishment of much that he has at heart in order to get something done. As organization is in ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... to the Ministry, he shot his glance up and down the street. He was in the clutch now, and knew it. ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... dreamily before me, Forms that so early cheered my troubled eyes! To hold you fast doth still my heart implore me? Still bid me clutch the charm that lures and flies? Ye crowd around! come, then, hold empire o'er me, As from the mist and haze of thought ye rise; The magic atmosphere, your train enwreathing, Through my thrilled ...
— Faust • Goethe
... purlieus of theory, but see it and hear it and feel it in echoes and glimpses. Yet all these rainbows which span the heaven of thought, finely woven of the tears of humility, one would sometimes grasp and crystallize forever. In that I find my satisfaction in what I know of Fourier; but to clutch at the rainbow! can it ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... his jaws to roar again when Fan interposed and, taking a clutch in his shaggy beard, said, calmly: "Now, dad, you hush! George Adelbert and I have made it all up and you better fall in gracefully. It won't do you any good to paw ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... Marshall players came dashing; but they might as well have hoped to catch the wind in a sixty-mile gale as overtake that speedy runner. It was as though Jack had reserved his best powers for this special occasion. He saw just where he meant to hurl himself over the line, and clutch that envied touchdown. Had a dozen followed he would have distanced them every one, such was his mettle just then. He seemed endowed with supernatural speed, many who stared and held their ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... been used on the field of honor. Whenever my grandfather went out for a walk, or to play whist at the house of a neighbor, I would get down these pistols and fight duels with myself in front of the looking-glass. With my left hand I would hold the handkerchief above my head, and with the other clutch the pistol at my side, and then, at the word, and as the handkerchief fluttered to the floor, I would take careful aim and pull the trigger. Sometimes I died and made speeches before I expired, and sometimes I killed my adversary and stood ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... and not thinking of his own danger, Francesco gave him a push, and losing his balance the captain fell over the edge, a distance of sixty feet, upon the jagged rocks beneath. But not alone! Still retaining his fierce clutch upon the Italian's throat, the murderer, too, fell with him, and both were stretched in an instant, mangled and lifeless, at the ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... impossible to cast anchor, or to use the capstan. What course had best be pursued in this critical situation? The vessel beat violently against the rocks, and a host of pirogues waited in expectation of a shipwreck, eager to clutch their prey. Fortunately at the end of an hour a favourable breeze rising, disengaged the Dauphin, and wafted her into good anchorage. The damage done was not serious, and was as easily repaired ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... out briskly and without showing the least sign of suspicion, when all at once he gave a loud snort and wheeled sharply to the right, completely unseating me, However, I did not fall off, as I managed to clutch hold of his mane. As I swung back into the saddle, I saw that we had narrowly escaped falling down the sleep bank into ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... Such sweet little souls to ensnare,— Why, no conduct could well have been meaner. But all things went well for a time; The parties they trusted made much of them; Little they fancied that crime Would ever attempt to get clutch of them. Rum ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... of the flood is swept from the face of the earth. The mountains, assailed in a moment with the ferocity of a hundred storms, are ripped and torn like hills of clay. The frosted scale of the granite, the desperate root of the cedar, the poised nest of the eagle, the clutch of the crannied vine, the split and start of the mountainside, are all as one before the June thaw. At its height Little Crawling Stone, with a head of forty feet, is a choking flood of rock. Mountains, torn and bleeding, vomit bowlders of thirty, sixty, a hundred tons ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... visitation—soon regained his composure, it was far otherwise with his friend, who immediately gave the alarm. Mr. Hudson rushed in and boldly attacked the monkey, grasping him by the throat. The book-editor next came in, obtaining a clutch upon the brute by the ears; the musical critic followed and seized the tail with both hands, and a number of reporters, armed with inkstands and sharpened pencils, came next, followed by a dozen policemen with brandished clubs; at the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... for a fat man. They were tapering, slender, delicate, blue-veined, temperamental hands. At this moment, despite his purpling face, and his staring eyes, they were the most noticeable thing about him. His fingers clawed the empty air, quivering, vibrant, as though poised to clutch at ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... sword on the floor he saw nothing clearly. And then he saw mine host coming down the rope, hand over hand quite nimbly, as though he lived by this business. In his right hand he held a poniard of exceptional length, yet he managed to clutch the rope and hold the poniard all the time with the ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... biplane finally dropped down to the ground close by the hangar where it was to be housed, the three comrades were only too glad of a chance to clutch hold, and assist to the best ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... on a surging head. The mill itself, as regards the roll, is much the same as those of other firms; but instead of an engine with a heavy fly-wheel, always working in one direction, and connected to the rolls by double clutch and gearing, the work is done by a pair of horizontal reversing engines, in connection with which there is a very simple, and at the same time extremely effectual, system of hydraulic reversing. ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... too much of it, and become monkish, savage and misanthropic. The asceticism of manhood is apparent from the studied air with which everybody is on his guard against his neighbor. In a crowded car, men instinctively clutch their pockets, and fancy a pickpocket in a benevolent-looking old gentleman opposite. When we see men so distrustful, we shun them. They then call us selfish when we feel only solitary. We protest against such manhood as would lower golden ideals of youth to its own contemptible Avernus. ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... the sole protection which had hidden him from his enemies begin to move away his courage failed him, and he had not sufficient boldness to carry out the plan he had so neatly arranged. Instinctively he threw his arms up to clutch the rope again, but it was too late, it had already passed beyond his reach; there was nothing left to save him. Another moment and his hiding place would be discovered, when——, Sir Thomas missed his footing, and with a gesture of impatience ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... out, as in memories of nightmare. I remember those trees especially, and my desperate running along under them, and how, every time I fell, roars of laughter went up from the other drunks. They thought I was merely antic drunk. They did not dream that John Barleycorn had me by the throat in a death-clutch. But I knew it. And I remember the fleeting bitterness that was mine as I realised that I was in a struggle with death, and that these others did not know. It was as if I were drowning before a crowd of spectators who thought I was cutting up tricks ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... to seize it in my grasp. Down would I sink before her very feet. Yet, as the fragrance over valleys spread Is scattered by the wind's fresh blowing breath, Along the sloping terrace flees the throng. I tread the ramp—unending, far away It stretches up to heaven's very gate, I clutch to right, I clutch to left, and fear No one of all the treasures to secure, No one of all the dear ones to retain. In vain—the castle's door is rudely closed; A flash of brightness from within, then dark, The doors once more swing clatteringly together. And I awaking hold within ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... bidding the dogs lie close. Then in a moment came a fearful crack from a gun he carried, and something gave a great roar and a wild snort, and I nearly lost my senses with the fright. It was all I could do to clutch on by the branch, my legs shook so with fear; and as for my companion, if it hadn't been for falling into a cleft in a branch, he would have gone straight down on to the man's wide-spreading hat. The cry had come from a boar, ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... these distributions, should have been so coveted. [Sidenote: Why small portions of land were so coveted.] The explanation is probably fourfold. Those who clamoured for them were wretched enough to clutch at any change; or did not realise to themselves the dangers and drawbacks of what they desired; or intended at once to sell their land to some richer neighbour; or, lastly, longed to keep a slave or two, just ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... sobbing as much from anxiety as from the violence of his exertions when he tore Appleton from the clutch of the black man and set ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Well could I imagine that we were travelling at that same terrific, impossible speed. And we were helpless—helpless in the clutch of—what? What power lay behind this band of light that drew ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... whom no danger's shape could fright, Unpaid, refuse to mount their ships, for spite Or to their fellows swim, on board the Dutch, Who show the tempting metal in their clutch.] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... again, sir," whispered Wriggs, with bated breath, as he made a clutch at his messmate and held on tightly, for a curious heaving sensation, as of a wave passing beneath them, was felt, followed by a deep booming ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... your admiration, pardieu," says the Pretender, with a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, and a clutch at ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... on timbers laid on the ground. The driver was moved along and rotated when necessary by ropes passing around the winch head of the engine. The driver had 50-ft. leads and a 3,100-lb. hammer operated by an ordinary friction clutch hoisting engine. The hammer blow was received by an oak block fitting into a recess at the top of the steel core. This block was so battered by the blows that it had to be renewed about every five or six piles driven. A -in. wire rope passing over a 10-in. sheave lasted ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... silencer from a clutch, A sparking-plug from a bearing, But no one, I think, is in closer touch With the caps the women are wearing; I'm au fait with the trim of the tailor-made brim, The crown and machine-stitched strap; Though I've ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... the report of a pistol shot came to their ears. As Alix stopped short, her hand outstretched to clutch the door knob, a second ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... grasping power. The toes on each foot are arranged in opposite pairs—two turning in front and two backward, which gives all parrots their peculiar firmness in clinging on a perch or on the branch of a tree with one foot only, while they extend the other to grasp a fruit or to clutch at any object they desire to take possession of. True, this peculiarity isn't entirely confined to the parrots alone, as such. They share the division of the foot into two thumbs and two fingers with a whole large group of allied birds, called, in the ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... said, 'Because thou hast twelve rods in thine hand, and I have but one. Give thine to me, and peace shall prevail between us!' But Judah refused to do his bidding, and Joseph beat him until he dropped ten rods, and only two remained in his clutch. Joseph now invited his brethren to abandon Judah and follow after him. They all did thus, except Benjamin, who stayed true to Judah. Levi was grieved over the desertion of Judah, and he descended from the sun. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... was for that very evening. He had accepted the invitation verbally, when talking to Mrs. Medhurst at the studio-warming. And now a strange notion seemed to come whizzing at him and he arrested it with a clutch. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... fiercely, and making a clutch at Paul's arm; "he'll turn you out, he will, not being anxious fur anyone to have my flower, though love her as he oughter do, he don't, no," cried Deborah, "nor her ma before her, who died with a starvin' 'eart. But you run away with my sweetest and make her ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... first of the three courses. He held it with the nervous clutch of a weak nature until overmastered by two grim men who gradually hypnotized his will. The turning-point for Buchanan, and the last poor crisis in his inglorious career, came on Sunday, December 30th. Before that day arrived, his vacillation had moved his friends to pity and his enemies to scorn. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the nearer he approached the time, the weight of the fragments of his broken images became unbearable. Tsiganok now felt like standing still, like spreading his legs and standing—but a whirling current of thoughts carried him away and there was nothing at which he could clutch—everything about him swam. And his sleep also became uneasy. Dreams even more violent than his thoughts appeared—new dreams, solid, heavy, like wooden painted blocks. And it was no longer like a current, but like an endless fall to an endless depth, a whirling flight ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... division of the empire into Buddhist parishes, the bonzes have had the oversight of birth, death, marriage and divorce. Particularly tenacious, in common with priestcraft all over the world, is their clutch upon what they call "consecrated ground." In a large sense Japan is still, what China has always been, a country governed by the graveyard. These cities of the dead are usually kept in attractive order ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... high as he spoke, and I saw the sharp steel gleam as it turned to fall. And I twisted from his grip, and caught the falling arm, and bent it till the dagger dropped to the ground. And then, for a fierce, desperate, devilish minute, I had him in my clutch, dragging him nearer the smooth, slippery edge. He was no match for me at this I knew, and he knew; but he held me with the hold of his despair, and I could not loose myself. Both of us together, he meant; but not I. Yet I only freed myself just as he rolled ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... fifteen or sixteen. Yet most unfortunately, just as De Quincey's merits, or some of them, appeal specially to youth, and his defects specially escape the notice of youth, so age with stealing steps especially claws those merits into his clutch and leaves the defects exposed to derision. The most gracious state of authors is that they shall charm at all ages those whom they do charm. There are others—Dante, Cervantes, Goethe are instances—as to whom you may even begin with a little ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... lover, but her own brave hero and true knight. Woe! woe! the eager dream is broken by mad war-whoops! Alas! to those fierce wild men, what is love, or loveliness? Pride, and passion, and the old accursed hunger for gold flame up in their savage breasts. Wrathful, loathsome fingers clutch the long, fair hair that even the fingers of love have caressed but with reverent half-touch,—and love, and hope, and life go out in one dread moment of horror and despair. Now, through the reverberations of more than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... foot from her clutch. There was a look in his eyes which she never forgot to the end of her life. "Excuse me, but I must hurry," he said. "He is on a fast horse, and the train may be on time. He must not get aboard. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... lantern farther into the mound, he peered in. Below, and immediately under him, was a black hole, about three feet square. Burke was so startled that he almost dropped the lantern. But he was a man of tough nerve, and maintained his clutch upon it. But he drew back. It required some seconds to catch his breath. Presently he ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... herself ten months. She had asked for ten months; not a day more. But she had not allowed for friction or disturbance from the outside. And the check—it was a clutch at the heart that brought her brain up staggering—came entirely from the outside, from the uttermost rim of her circle, from ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously; this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the sloping ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and arm wavered still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his eyes and thought he would never open them again. Suddenly he was aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dolokhov was standing on the window sill, with a pale but ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... very well known to the reader, was one of the unhappiest of men. Besides the matter at his heart he lived hourly in mortal dread of bodily harm. In the dead of night he would waken, start suddenly from his bed and clutch at some garment hanging upon the wall, deeming the thing to be an assassin. Mr. Begg says that one day he went out to call upon one Charles Nolin, for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation. While he was sitting in the house eating supper, ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... then wait for him. If the field was not too large he could easily be heard breaking down the ears, and then the dogs were let loose. They cautiously and silently crept towards the unsuspecting foe. But the sharp ears and keen scent of the raccoon seldom let him fall into the clutch of the dogs without a scamper for life. The coon was almost always near the woods, and this gave him a chance of escape. As soon as a yelp was heard from the dogs, we knew the fun had begun, and pushing forward in the direction of ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... of the Monte Beni family showed valor and policy enough' at all events, to keep their hereditary possessions out of the clutch of grasping neighbors, and probably differed very little from the other feudal barons with whom they fought and feasted. Such a degree of conformity with the manners of the generations through which it survived, must have been essential to the ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... This visible clutch of heredity is the nearest equivalent that is offered for the whispered refrain: "Ghosts," in the original masterpiece. This hand should also be reiterated as a refrain, three times at least, before this tableau, each time more dreadful and threatening. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... his office on the morrow for counsel on a very vital question. In plain words: how to avoid being a school teacher. And now this brilliant and learned man, by far the brightest star in the Wellington faculty, was dangerously ill. Molly felt suddenly the cold clutch of disappointment. ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... the access open? By the great God of Heaven! it was not My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolved. I but amused myself with thinking of it. The free-will tempted me, the power to do Or not to do it—Was it criminal To make the fancy minister to hope, To fill the air with pretty toys of air, And clutch fantastic sceptres moving t'ward me! Was not the will kept free? Beheld I not The road of duty close beside me—but One little step, and once more I was in it! Where am I? Whither have I been transported? No road, no track behind me, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... which had so often rewarded Spanish chivalry with fabulous wealth. And there were men in those galleons who remembered the sack of Antwerp eleven years before; men who could tell, from personal experience, how helpless was a great commercial city when once in the clutch of disciplined brigands; men who in that dread "fury of Antwerp" had enriched themselves in an hour with the accumulations of a merchant's lifetime, and who had slain fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... had clasped her to him, he released her, springing back with a muttered execration. She tottered dizzily, and involuntarily reached out to clutch his arm for support. He ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... perceive that she was not free, that she was a part of a social machine, the power of which she had not at all apprehended, and that she was powerless in its clutch. She might resist, but peace was gone. She had heretofore found peace in obedience, but when she consulted her own heart she knew that she could not find peace in obedience now. To a girl differently reared, perhaps, subterfuge, or some manoeuvring justified by ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Michigan! Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! land of Vermont and Connecticut! Land of the ocean shores! land of sierras and peaks! Land of boatmen and sailors! fishermen's land! Inextricable lands! the clutch'd together! the passionate ones! The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb'd! The great women's land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and the inexperienced sisters! Far breath'd land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez'd! the diverse! the ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... down the prison-door. There stood Wallace and his men, their weapons and armour covered with blood. De Valence, evading the clutch of Kirkpatrick, thrust his dagger into Wallace's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various |
