"Tenter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell it!" said Coryston, sharply. "Is it fair to keep us on tenter-hooks? What is that paper, for instance? Extracts, I guess, from your will—which concern me—and the rest of them"—he waved his hand toward the other three. "For God's sake let's have them, and get done ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... minces de neige les approches de cette redoutable montagne, quoique peut-etre en choisissant une annee ou il seroit tombe beaucoup de neige, et en prenant le temps ou cette neige seroit encore ferme, quelque chasseur adroit et courageux pourroit tenter cette route. ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... the excessive heat of the Tropics. The coldest regions where tillage is possible are tolerable places of residence, because their winters are intensely dry. That of central Siberia, which is drier than the driest desert, makes tent life comfortable in the coldest season, provided the tenter be clad in furs. The low temperatures of the Canadian Northwest for the same reason have not repelled settlers even from the Southern States. Negroes, however, meet a climatic barrier in America at the isotherm of 5 deg. Centigrade ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... girl; and she's reduced the tactics of non-resistance to a fine art. I don't believe she ever stands up to her mother. She smiles and smiles—and goes her own way. She likes playing with soldiers; partly because they're good company; partly, I'll swear, because she knows it keeps her mother on tenter-hooks. But when it comes to business, she'll ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... be sentenced by the gentility party. He would fulfil his dukkeripen. Lavengro having ended abruptly enough, Borrow took .up the tale where he had left it off; and though he kept his admirers on the tenter-hooks for six years, did at last in 1857 give to the world The Romany Rye, to which he added an Appendix. Ah! that Appendix! It is Borrow's Apologia, and therefore must be read. It is interesting and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... 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 forty to fifty majority at the second reading. ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... advantages of painting, gilding and imagery. . . . NOBLEMEN in HENRY the Eighth's time were obliged to carry all the beds, hangings and furniture with them when they removed. The usual manner of hanging the rooms in the old castles was only to cover the naked walls with tapestry or arras hung upon tenter hooks, from which they were easily taken down upon every removal. On such an occasion the number of carts employed in a considerable family must have formed a caravan nearly as large as those which traverse the deserts ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... wouldn't she be in a tantrum? But you are all right; you haven't an idea of scolding me. I arrived here as safely as a girl could. And what do you think? I brought pretty Ruth Craven with me. She didn't much like it, but here she is; and she's on tenter-hooks to get home, so she can return ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Adeline Grew 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
... dears; you must have been on tenter-hooks all this time, for, of course, you saw there was a crisis, and you behaved much better than I should have done at your age; but it was only a fait accompli this very day, and we ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they despise; or sometimes in a conflict with their own kind— when stimulated by warrior pride, and the promptings of the tribal vendetta. On other occasions, they are sufficiently careful of their skins—more especially in an encounter with the white trappers, or even travellers who tenter the prairies from the east. Of all other weapons, they dread the long rifle of the hunter. It is only after stratagem has failed—when do or die becomes a necessity—that the horse-Indian can bring himself to charge forward upon the glistening ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... you to know yet; but first, young gentleman, you who are hanging on tenter-hooks, you must hang ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... day, a third, a fourth, a week, still no answer reaches them. They go quietly on without hesitation. Two weeks. How long it must have seemed! Think of fourteen days spent waiting; waiting for something, with your heart on tenter hooks. There is no answer. God might have been dead, to adapt the words of Catharine Luther, so far as any answer reaching them is concerned. But you cannot befool Daniel in that way. He is an old hand at prayer. Apparently he has no thought of quitting. He goes ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... freaks was a fatuous and generally fatal one. For the slightest miscarriage they discharged their lawyer, and leaped into the office of a new one. Has any man moved in the affairs of men, with a grain of common-sense or half a pennyweight of experience, without being taught that an old tenter-hook sits easier to him than a new one? And not only that, but in shifting his quarters he may leave some ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore |
