"Tenter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... together in one house, which being set on fire, they all perished in the flames. Many were stripped naked, and being fastened to horses by ropes placed round their middles, were dragged through bogs till they expired. Some were hung by the feet to tenter-hooks driven into poles; and in that wretched posture left till they perished. Others were fastened to the trunk of a tree, with a branch at top. Over this branch hung one arm, which principally supported ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... fallowing. And to the end that you may cut vp all such weedes cleane, although both your Share and Coulture misse them, you shall haue the rest of your Plough in the vnder part which strokes alongst the earth filled all full of dragges of Iron, that is, of olde crooked nailes or great tenter-hookes, such as vpon the putting downe of your right hand when you come neere a weed shall catch hold thereof and teare it vp by the rootes, as at this day is vsed be many particular Husbands in this kingdome, ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... of Pascal!" I cried, "even you could detect no casuistry here. And have you no scruple, young man, in keeping an old gentleman on the tenter-hooks of expectation whilst you are splitting hairs? Go on, like a good fellow, I was never so interested in my life. The ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... his chair again, and every vestige of color left his usually blooming countenance; but though Fitzgerald was on tenter-hooks to know whether the escape was discovered, he ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... he is so entertaining a personage that I do not care to get rid of him,—had to overcome difficulties which stretched his fine genius on tenter-hooks. Once—rarely did the like unlucky accident happen to the wary master of the ceremonies—did Sir John exceed the civility of his instructions, or rather his half-instructions. Being sent to invite the Dutch ambassador and the States' commissioners, then a young and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... dans le ciel des nuages de feu; Suspendez votre marche; il ne faut tenter Dieu. Par monsieur saint Denis! certes ce sont des mes Qui passent dans les airs sur ces ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... friends in this or any other sense, Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine: At present I am glad of a pretence To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine, And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense; The surest way for ladies and for books To bait their tender, or their tenter, hooks. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the mother's jewels and she's on tenter-hooks every three months, I can tell you! It is hard work for her to pay the interest on what I've lent her. Do you want to marry there, simpleton?" she added, addressing Gazonal; "then pay me forty francs and ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... with his ruddy looks. But what's the bush, whose pricks, like tenter-hooks, Do scratch and claw the finest lady's hands, Or rend her clothes, if she too near it stands? This bush an emblem is of Adam's race, Of which Christ came, when he his Father's grace Commended to us in his crimson blood, While he in sinners' stead ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with all that money, they're lucky," people said. It was the general impression in Upham that the Colonel had gone to Boston with his sixty-five thousand dollars in his pocket. Lawyer Means's ancient relative, who served as house-keeper, was reported to have confessed that she was on tenter-hooks about it. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... frowningly concentrated on her thoughts. CHRIS wanders about the room, casting quick, uneasy side glances at her face, then stopping to peer absentmindedly out of the window. His attitude betrays an overwhelming, gloomy anxiety which has him on tenter hooks. He pretends to be engaged in setting things ship-shape, but this occupation is confined to picking up some object, staring at it stupidly for a second, then aimlessly putting it down again. He clears his throat and starts ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... it covers only one thread of the canvas at a stroke, and is therefore on a more minute scale than stitches which are two or three threads wide, as cross-stitch may, and cushion-stitch must, be. It derives its name from the old word tenture, or tenter (tendere, to stretch), the frame on which the embroidress distended her canvas. The word has gone out of use, but we still speak of tenter-hooks. The stitch is serviceable enough in its way, but is discredited by the monstrous ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... Cobden: I received your letters with the enclosures. We are still on the tenter-hooks respecting the conduct of the Lords. There is, however, one cheering point: the majority on the second reading is improving in the stock-books of the whippers-in. It is now expected that there will be ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... I think. And I'm not going to be caught up on the tenter-hooks of conscience as to all my meanings, Miss Cotton. I don't know them all. But I'm not one ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
